HMS Seahorse (1748)

History

Great Britain
Name:	HMS Seahorse
Ordered:	4 February 1748
Builder:	John Barnard, Harwich
Laid down:	23 February 1748
Launched:	13 September 1748
Commissioned:	November 1748
Fate:	Sold on 30 December 1784
United Kingdom
Name:	Ravensworth
Owner:	1784: Richard Buller 1788: C. Herries & Co.
Acquired:	1784 by purchase
Fate:	Last listed in Lloyd's Register in 1793.
General characteristics
Class and type:	Sixth-rate frigate
Tons burthen:	512 ¹⁄₉₄, or 519 (bm)
Length:	Royal Navy 114 ft 0 in (34.75 m) (overall) 95 ft 4 in (29.06 m) (keel) After rebuild 115 ft 10 in (35.31 m) (overall) 92 ft 4 in (28.14 m) (keel)
Beam:	Royal Navy: 32 ft (9.8 m) After rebuild: 32 ft 3 ¹⁄₂ in (9.843 m)
Depth of hold:	Royal Navy: 10 ft 2 in (3.10 m) After rebuild: 10 ft 2 in (3.10 m)
Propulsion:	Sails
Sail plan:	Full rigged ship
Complement:	160
Armament:	Upper deck: 22 × 9-pounder guns QD: 2 x 3-pounder guns

HMS Seahorse was a 24-gun sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, launched in 1748. She is perhaps most famous as the ship on which a young Horatio Nelson served as a midshipman. She also participated in four battles off the coast of India between 1781 and 1783. The Royal Navy sold her in 1784 and she then became a merchantman. She made one voyage for the British East India Company (EIC) between 1786 and 1788. she then traded locally until 1793-94, when she disappears from the lists.

Seahorse was ordered on 4 February 1748, with the contract being awarded to John Barnard, of Harwich, on 23 February 1748. Barnard laid her keel that very day and built her to a design by the Surveyor of the Navy Jacob Acworth. She was named Seahorse on 23 August, launched on 13 September 1748 and commissioned in November. She was completed on 17 February 1749 at Sheerness Dockyard, having cost £4,063.10.0d to build, and with a further £1,264.14.8d spent on fitting her out.

Her first commander was Captain Samuel Barrington, who took over in November 1748, and sailed her to the Mediterranean in 1749.Seahorse was back in the English Channel in 1752, with Hugh Palliser replacing Barrington in April 1753.Seahorse then served initially in Home waters, before sailing to North America in January 1755. She returned to Britain in July that year, carrying the flag of Admiral Augustus Keppel.

Captain George Darby took command in 1756, and sailed from Britain bound for Newfoundland on 15 May 1756. Captain Thomas Taylor replaced Darby in March 1757. Under Taylor's command Seahorse was active in the North Sea, later fighting an engagement against two enemy frigates off Ostend, together with the sloops HMS Raven and HMS Bonetta.

...
Wikipedia