Pinnace (Generic)

Type

Pinnace

Period

18th Century

Nation

Great Britain

Overview: The pinnace was not a single ship but a standard type of ship's boat carried by Royal Navy warships throughout the Age of Sail, used as a general-purpose tender rather than a named vessel. As a ship's boat the pinnace is a light boat, propelled by oars or sails, carried aboard merchant and war vessels in the Age of Sail to serve as a tender. Its origins as a boat type can be traced back as far as 1618 when it was listed as one of the three boat types carried by warships. Specifications: By the beginning of the 19th century a pinnace was available in eight lengths ranging from 28 to 37 feet, built in either double diagonal or clinker fashion, and could be rowed or sailed. Pinnaces were normally single-banked, with one thole (oar pin) per thwart alternating from port to starboard down the boat's length, a detail modelers often get wrong when copying cutaway contemporary drawings. Surviving Admiralty-style draughts, such as the 28-foot pinnace plans held by the National Maritime Museum, show the body plan, sheer lines, inboard detail, and longitudinal half-breadth with deck details typically drawn at 1:24 scale. Service History: A pinnace would ferry passengers and mail, communicate between vessels, scout to sound anchorages, convey water and provisions, or carry armed sailors for boarding expeditions. Every rated warship of the 18th-century Royal Navy carried one or more pinnaces alongside its launch, cutters, jolly-boat and gig, each optimized for slightly different duties. Because there was no single standardized design, exact pinnace dimensions and construction varied by builder, period, and the size of the parent ship. Notable Facts: A well-known set of ten contemporary boat design half-models (including several pinnaces), proposed circa 1838 by Sir William Symonds, Surveyor of the Navy, for a first-rate man-of-war, survives at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, and is a useful reference for hull lines even though it postdates the 18th century proper. Later in the 19th century, steam propulsion produced the "steam pinnace," a small armed picket boat carried by capital ships; one example, Steam Pinnace 199, is preserved at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, illustrating how the type endured long after the age of sail.