HMS Dart (1796)

History

UK
Name:	HMS Dart
Builder:	Hobbs & Hellyer, Redbridge
Laid down:	1796
Honours and awards:	Naval General Service Medal with clasps "Capture of the Désirée" "Copenhagen 1801"
Fate:	Broken up 1809
General characteristics
Type:	Experimental design
Tonnage:	148 (bm)
Length:	80 ft 0 in (24.4 m) (overall) 56 ft 7 ¹⁄₂ in (17.3 m) (keel)
Beam:	22 ft 2 in (6.8 m)
Depth of hold:	11 ft 6 in (3.5 m)
Sail plan:	Sloop
Complement:	121; later 140
Armament:	Originally: Upper deck (UD): 24 x 32-pounder carronades QD: 2 x 32-pounder carronades (two more were added later) Fc: 2 x 32-pounder carronades Later: UD: 18 x 32-pounder carronades QD: nil Fc: 2 x 6-pounder guns All carronades were an experimental design of 24cwt by Sadler

HMS Dart was one of two sloops built to an experimental design by Sir Samuel Bentham and launched in 1796. She served the Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary wars and the early part of the Napoleonic wars before being sold broken up in 1809.

Hobbs & Hellyer built six vessels to Bentham's design. Dart was the second of a two-vessel class of vessels that the Royal Navy classed as sloops, and she and her classmate Arrow were the largest of the six vessels. The design featured a large breadth-to-length ratio, structural bulkheads, and sliding keels. The vessels were also virtually double-ended.

Dart was commissioned in August 1796 under Commander Richard Raggett.

On 8 May 1798 Dart participated in Admiral Home Popham's expedition to Ostend to destroy the sluice gates of the Bruge canal. The expedition landed 1,300 British Army soldiers under the command of Major General Coote. The troops burnt the ships in the harbour and blew up the locks and gates on the Canal, but were then forced to surrender as adverse winds prevented their re-embarkation.

In May 1799 Commander Patrick Campbell replaced Raggett.

He was in command when Dart was among the vessels that participated in what became known as the Vlieter Incident. On 30 August 1799, a squadron of the navy of the Batavian Republic, commanded by Rear-Admiral Samuel Story, surrendered to the British navy. The incident occurred during the Anglo-Russian Invasion of Holland and took place near Wieringen on a sandbank near the channel between Texel and the mainland that was known as De Vlieter.

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