HMS Wolverine (1798)
Portrait of Wolverine
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| History | |
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| Name: | Rattler |
| Launched: | 1796 |
| Fate: | Sold 1798 |
| History | |
 UK
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| Name: | HMS Wolverine |
| Acquired: | March 1798 (by purchase) |
| Honours and awards: |
Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Wolverine 13 Sept. 1799" |
| Captured: | Captured and sunk 24 March 1804 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | brig-sloop (ex-collier) |
| Tonnage: | 286 (bm) |
| Length: |
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| Beam: | 27 ft 6 in (8.4 m) |
| Propulsion: | Sails |
| Sail plan: | Brig |
| Complement: | 70 |
| Armament: |
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HMS Wolverine (or Wolverene, or Woolverene), was a Royal Navy 14-gun brig-sloop, formerly the civilian collier Rattler that the Admiralty purchased in 1798 and converted into a brig sloop, but armed experimentally. She served during the French Revolutionary Wars and participated in one action that won for her crew a clasp to the Naval General Service Medal. A French privateer captured and sank Wolverine on 21 March 1804 whilst she was on convoy duty.
Unusually for a brig-sloop, she was virtually a two-deck vessel as the waist between forecastle and quarterdeck was filled in to form a continuous flush deck. The upper deck below this flush deck carried six 24-pounder carronades and two 18-pounder long guns, all mounted on centreline pivots. The gun crews could fire their weapons to either side of the vessel by rotating the carriages along grooves set into the deck firing through the eight gunports on either side to accommodate these guns.
On the flush deck above she additionally carried six 12-pounder carronades (two forwards and four on the quarterdeck). The crews could also shift the carronades on her upper deck from side to side as required.
Captain John Schank, who was responsible for several other nautical innovations, devised this method of arming Wolverine.
Lieutenant Donald M'Dougall commissioned Wolverine on 28 April 1798. On 16 April 1798 command passed to the newly promoted Commander Lewis Mortlock. The next month Wolverine was part of the force under Admiral Home Popham that took part in the Ostend Raid that landed 1,300 troops under Major General Coote at Ostend in May. Shore batteries caused extensive damage to her and killed one seaman and one soldier, and wounded 10 seamen and five soldiers; the soldiers on Wolverene were from the 23rd Regiment of Foot. The army blew up the locks and gates on the Bruges canal but was then forced to surrender.
On 28 June Wolverine was in company with the 50-gun fourth rate Romney, Plover, and Pilote, also later Daphne, and possibly the 24-gun post ship Champion, when they fell in with a Swedish convoy of 21 merchant vessels and their escort, 44-gun frigate. Sweden and Britain not then being at war, Captain Lawford of Romney shadowed the convoy while sending a lieutenant back to the Admiralty for instructions. On 30 June the lieutenant returned, but his instructions are now lost. Lawford decided to detain the Swedish merchant vessels, which he did, without the Swedish frigate intervening. Ultimately, the Swedish vessels sailed into Margate where they were held for some months before the authorities sent most on their way. Prize money for some part of the capture was paid in June 1804.
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Wikipedia