Ships, Boats, Things that Float

[Fisherking]

Dose this help any?

Canoes:
Canoes are shallow-draft boats with a fine, delicate shape. Their perfect hydrodynamic form has a lot in common with the Viking ship. One advantage over a rowboat is that the paddler faces the direction he's going. Most Indian canoes were small, light, and fast. They'd carry a few people rapidly up and down rivers and lakes. The Iroquois built big, 30-foot-long freight-carrying canoes that could haul 18 passengers or a ton of merchandise. But even they could be portaged by just three people.

(that other navy)


Dinghy:
There has always been a need for small tender boats for transporting goods and personnel to and from anchored sailing ships.

(Hope we see them for the lakes and rivers as military transport…at least in North America)


Gunboat:
a gunboat was usually a small undecked vessel carrying a single smoothbore cannon in the bow, or just two or three such cannons. A gunboat could carry one or two masts or be oar-powered only, but the single-masted version of about 50 ft length was most typical. Some types of gunboats carried two cannons, or else mounted a number of swivel guns on the railings.
The advantages of this type of gunboat were that since it only carried a single cannon, that cannon could be quite heavy -- for instance a 32-pounder -- and that the boat could be maneuvered in shallow or restricted waters, where sailing was difficult for larger ships. A single hit from a frigate would demolish a gunboat, but a frigate facing a half-dozen gunboats in an estuary would likely be seriously damaged before it could manage to sink all of them. Gunboats were also easy and quick to build; the combatants in the 1776 Battle of Valcour Island on New York's Lake Champlain were mostly gunboats built on the spot

(As escort to the Dinghy and also on lakes and rivers)

Sloop-of-War:
In the 18th and the earlier part of the 19th centuries, a sloop-of-war was a small sailing warship (also known as one of the escort types) with a single gun deck that carried anything up to eighteen cannon. As the rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above, this meant that the term sloop-of-war actually encompassed all the unrated combat vessels including the very small gun-brigs and cutters. In technical terms, even the more specialised bomb vessels and fireships were classed as sloops-of-war, and in practice these were actually employed in the sloop role when not carrying out their specialized functions.

(A better definition and as you can see it covers some of the other types)


Royal Navy Rating System

Ship of the line 1st Rate 100 +Guns 3Gun decks + forecastleand quarterdeck 850 to 875Crew 2000 tons+

Ship of the line 2nd Rate 90 to 98Guns 3 Gun decks+ forecastle and quarterdeck 700 to 750Crew about 2000 tons


Ship of the line 3rd Rate 64 to 80 Guns 2 Gun decks 500 to 650Crew 1300-1600 tons


Frigate(Razee?) 4thRate 50 to 60Guns 2 Gun decks 320 to 420Crew about 1000 tons


Frigate 5th Rate 32 to 40 Guns 1 Gun deck 200 to 300Crew 700 to 1450 tons


Frigate 6th Rate 20 to 28Guns 1 Gun deck 140 to 200 Crew 450 to 550 tons


Sloop-of-war 16 to 18 Guns Guns on deck 90 to 125 Crew 380 tons


Gun-brig and Cutter 6 to 14 Guns Guns on deck 5 to 25 Crew 220 tons