The ''Cyrus''-class
sixth rates of the
Royal Navy were a series of sixteen-flush decked
sloops of war
In the 18th century and most of the 19th, a sloop-of-war in the Royal Navy was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. The rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above; thus, the term ''sloop-of-war'' enc ...
built to an 1812 design by Sir William Rule, the
Surveyor of the Navy. The first nine ships of the class were launched in 1813 and the remaining seven in 1814. The vessels of the class served at the end of the
Napoleonic War. They were built on the lines of , which was based in turn on the French ship .
The ''Cyrus'' class was intended to be the counter to the new
''Frolic''-class ship-rigged sloops that were under construction for the
United States Navy. No encounter took place between any vessel of the ''Frolic'' class and one of the ''Cyrus'' class, but
HMS ''Levant'' was captured by the
older American frigate .
[Gardiner, p. 87]
With the re-organisation of the rating system which took place in the Royal Navy effective from 1 January 1817, the ''Cyrus''-class flush-decked ships were re-classified as 20-gun sloops.
Ships in class
Notes
References
*
* Rif Winfield, ''British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1793-1817'', Chatham Publishing, London 2005.
{{Cyrus class post ship
Ship classes