HMS Ferret (1743)

HMS Ferret was a 14-gun two-masted sloop of the Royal Navy, built on speculation by Henry Bird at Deptford Wet Dock on the Thames River, England in the same way as the preceding Saltash had been two years earlier. She was purchased while building by the Navy Board on 6 April 1743.

History
Great Britain
Name:	HMS Ferret
Builder:	Henry Bird, Deptford Wet Dock
Laid down:	1742 or 1743
Launched:	10 May 1743
Completed:	28 May 1743 at Deptford Dockyard
Commissioned:	May 1743
Fate:	Presumed foundered in a hurricane 24 September 1757
General characteristics
Class and type:	sloop
Tons burthen:	255 ​^51⁄94 (bm)
Length:	88 ft 4.5 in (26.9 m) (gundeck) 75 ft 2.75 in (22.9 m) (keel)
Beam:	25 ft 3.25 in (7.7 m)
Depth of hold:	6 ft 9.5 in (2.1 m)
Sail plan:	Snow
Complement:	125
Armament:	14 × 4-pounder guns; also 14 x ½-pounder swivel guns

The new sloop was launched on 10 May, and was commissioned in the same month under Commander John Moore, and served initially until 1748. In early 1749 she was modified, with her quarterdeck extended by several feet and her main mast shortened. In May 1749 she sailed for Jamaica, and remained in the West Indies until 1754. She was re-rigged as a ship sloop (by the addition of a mizzen mast) and recommissioned in April 1755 under Commander Arthur Upton; she was lost, presumed to have foundered in a hurricane off Nova Scotia on 24 September 1757.

References

• Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8.
• McLaughlan, Ian. The Sloop of War 1650–1763. Seaforth Publishing, 2014. ISBN 978-1-84832-187-8.
• Rif Winfield (2007). British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1714–1792: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84415-700-6.