HMS Latona (1781)

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Career (UK) RN Ensign
Name: HMS Latona
Operator: Royal Navy
Ordered: 22 March 1779
Builder: Edward Greaves's yard at Limehouse
Laid down: October 1779
Launched: 13 March 1781
Commissioned: 21 April 1781 (after fitting out at Deptford Dockyard)
Fate: 1813 hulked. 1816 sold.
General characteristics
Tons burthen: 944 20/94 bm
Length: 141 ft 3 in (43.05 m)
Beam: 38 ft 11.75 in (11.8809 m)
Depth of hold: 13 ft 6 in (4.11 m)
Propulsion: Sail
Complement: 270 (raised to 280 on 25 April 1780)
Armament: UD: Twenty-eight 18-pounder guns
QD: Eight 6-pounder guns, six 18-pounder carronades
FC: Two 6-pounder guns, four 18-pounder carronades
Also 14 swivels

HMS Latona was a 38-gun, 18-pounder gun armed fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was designed by the senior surveyor John Williams. In this era it was common for each surveyor to produce independent designs for new ship types, and this design was a counterpoint to Edward Hunt's HMS Minerva; together the two draughts represent the prototype of the thirty-eight gun, 18-pounder armed frigate.

Latona, commanded by T.L.M. Gosselin, captured the Spanish ketch Amphion, armed with 12 guns and 70 men at sea 22 October 1805.

At the Action of 10 February 1809, Latona was involved in the capture of HMS Junon in the West Indies.

References

  • Robert Gardiner, The Heavy Frigate, Conway Maritime Press, London 1994.
  • Rif Winfield, British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1793-1817, Chatham Publishing, London 2005.