HMS Castor (1785)
Print by Thomas Whitcombe depicting HMS Carysfort retaking Castor from the French on 29 May 1794
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| History | |
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 Great Britain
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| Name: | HMS Castor |
| Ordered: | 30 January 1782 |
| Builder: | Joseph Graham, Harwich |
| Laid down: | January 1783 |
| Launched: | 26 May 1785 |
| Completed: | 11 July 1786 |
| Fate: | Sold on 22 July 1819 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | 32-gun Amazon-class fifth-rate frigate |
| Tons burthen: | 680 (bm) |
| Length: |
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| Beam: | 35 ft 1 in (10.7 m) |
| Draught: | 9 ft (2.74 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 12 ft 2 in (3.71 m) |
| Sail plan: | Full-rigged ship |
| Complement: | 220 |
| Armament: |
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HMS Castor was a 32-gun Amazon-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The French briefly captured her during the Atlantic Campaign of May 1794 but she spent just 20 days in French hands as a British ship retook her before her prize crew could reach a French port. Castor eventually saw service in many of the theatres of the wars, spending time in the waters off the British Isles, in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, as well as the Caribbean.
Castor was ordered on 30 January 1782 and laid down in January the following year at the yards of the shipbuilder Joseph Graham, of Harwich. She was launched on 26 May 1785 and completed by July the following year. The ship was then laid up in ordinary at Chatham Dockyard.
Castor spent nearly five years in ordinary until the Spanish Armament of 1790 caused her to be fitted out at Chatham between June and August 1790 for the sum of £2,795. She commissioned in July that year under Captain John S. Smith, but the easing of international tensions caused Castor to be paid off later that year. The rising tensions with France immediately prior to the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars led the Admiralty to again prepare Castor for active service. She was fitted at Chatham between February and April 1793 for £4,066, recommissioning that February under Captain Thomas Troubridge.
Troubridge sailed for the Mediterranean on 22 May 1793, where in June she and HMS Mermaid captured a 14-gun privateer.Castor was then part of Admiral Hood's fleet at Toulon. While Castor was escorting a convoy back to Britain, on 9 May 1794 a French squadron under Rear-Admiral Joseph-Marie Nielly chased and captured her off Cape Clear. A French prize crew then sailed her back towards France. Twenty days later, on 29 May, Francis Laforey's HMS Carysfort sighted Castor off Land's End and recaptured her.Castor was re-registered as a naval ship on 6 November and recommissioned in January 1795 under Captain Rowley Bulteel. Bulteel took her to the Mediterranean in May 1795, but paid her off in September 1796.
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Wikipedia