HMS Adder (1797)

Type

Brig

Period

18th Century

Nation

Great Britain

Overview: HMS Adder (1797) was a 12/14-gun Acute-class gun-brig of the Royal Navy, one of fifteen shallow-draught gunboats designed by Surveyor of the Navy Sir John Henslow and ordered on 7 February 1797 for inshore and anti-invasion work against French coastal shipping. Specifications: The Acute-class vessels were brig-rigged gunboats of about 160 tons burthen, roughly 75ft on the main deck, 61ft 8in at the keel, and 22ft 2in in beam, drawing about 3ft 9in forward and 6ft aft; they carried 12 x 18-pounder carronades on the broadside plus 2 x 24-pounder long bow-chase guns, were fitted with Schank sliding/drop keels for stability, had sweep ports for oars, and were manned by a crew of about 50 under a single lieutenant-in-command. Adder herself was ordered 7 February 1797, laid down that month, and launched 22 April 1797; she was lengthened by about 22ft on the slip in mid-1797, per the Royal Museums Greenwich draught record. Service History: Adder served on the Channel and North Sea stations during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, including employment on the British expedition to Holland in August-October 1799, and later operating with the Baltic fleet under Vice-Admiral Sir Hyde Parker and Lord Nelson around 1801, sailing in company with numerous other gun-brigs, bomb vessels and sloops. She was broken up in 1805. Notable Facts: Adder was part of a large program of near-identical Acute-class gunbrigs (originally numbered GB No.4 through GB No.18 before being named in August 1797) built alongside the rival Courser-class design by Sir William Rule, both classes intended as cheap, shallow-draft coastal-defense craft against a feared French invasion. A contemporary 1:48 Admiralty draught covering Adder, Contest, Crash and Spiteful survives at Royal Museums Greenwich, and the ship has been reproduced as a 1:64 scale wooden kit by Vanguard Models, popular in the ship-modeling community.