Cruizer class brig-sloop
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The Cruizer-class brig-sloop HMS Pelorus aground at low water
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| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Cruizer class |
| Operators: |
 Royal Navy
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| In service: | 1797–1826 |
| Completed: | 110 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Brig-sloop |
| Tons burthen: | 382 41⁄94 (bm) |
| Length: | 100 ft (30 m) (overall); 77 ft 3 1⁄2 in (23.559 m) (keel) |
| Beam: | 30 ft 6 in (9.30 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 12 ft 9 in (3.89 m) |
| Sail plan: | Brig |
| Complement: | 121 |
| Armament: |
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The Cruizer class was an 18-gun class of brig-sloops of the Royal Navy. Brig-sloops were the same as ship-sloops except for their rigging. A ship-sloop was rigged with three masts whereas a brig-sloop was rigged as a brig with only a fore mast and a main mast.
The Cruizer class was the most numerous class of warships built by the British during the Napoleonic wars, with 110 vessels built to this design, and the second most numerous class of sailing warship built to a single design for any navy at any time, after the smaller 10-gun Cherokee-class brig-sloops.
Of the vessels in the class, eight (8%) were lost to the enemy, either destroyed or taken. Another was taken, but retaken. Fourteen (13%) were wrecked while in British service. Lastly, four (4%) foundered while in British service. In all cases of foundering and in many cases of wrecking all the crew was lost. Many of the vessels in the class were sold, some into mercantile service. One at least was wrecked. The fate of the others is generally unknown.
In December 1796, the Navy Board placed new orders for four flush-decked sloops, to differing designs by the two Surveyors of the Navy — Sir William Rule and Sir John Henslow. In order to compare the qualities of ship-rigged and brig-rigged vessels, one vessel to each design was to be completed as a ship-sloop and the other as a brig-sloop. While the Henslow-designed vessels (the brig-sloop Busy and the ship-sloop Echo) would see no further sister ships built, the Rule-designed vessels (the brig-sloop Cruizer and the ship-sloop Snake would each have a single sister ship ordered in the following March, and Rule's Cruizer design would subsequently see 106 constructed during the Napoleonic War. The hull design was exceeding fine (narrow as compared to length), a noted deadrise amidships, and a sharp sheer, giving away the design that had origins in the smaller cutter-type designs.
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