HMS Aid (1809)

History
United Kingdom
NameHMS Aid
Laid downJuly 1808
Launched4 April 1809
RenamedHMS Adventure, 24 May 1821
FateSold 19 March 1853
General characteristics [1]
Class and typeAid-class storeship
Tons burthen313 6894 (bm)
Length
  • 105 ft 5 in (32.13 m) (overall)
  • 87 ft 3 in (26.59 m)
Beam26 ft (7.9 m)
Depth of hold17 ft 4 in (5.28 m)
PropulsionSails
Complement39
Armament4 × 12-pounder carronades + 2 × 9-pounder guns (as survey ship)

HMS Aid was a Royal Navy transport ship launched in 1809 at Kings Lynn. She was the name ship of a six-vessel class of purpose built storeships, the only vessels built as such during the Napoleonic Wars.[1]

Ordered in 1808, she was built by Mr Thomas Brindley at King's Lynn, Norfolk.[2]

She was converted to a survey ship between December 1816 and March 1817 at Sheerness. Commander William Henry Smyth commissioned her in January 1817.[1]

On 14 September 1817, while under Smyth's command, she was at Lebida (Leptis Magna), together with HMS Weymouth. There they loaded columns, marbles, and other antiquities to bring back to England.[3]

Aid was renamed HMS Adventure in 1821.

As HMS Adventure the ship was deployed for five years between 1826 and 1830 in a survey of Patagonia, under the command of Captain Phillip King. The ship was accompanied by HMS Beagle, a slightly smaller vessel (90.3 ft in length), who was on her first of three major voyages. Adventure was sold in Plymouth by the Admiralty on 19 May 1853 for £750.[4]

  1. ^ a b c Winfield (2008), p.398.
  2. ^ "Contract for Assistance (1809) and Aid (1809)". collections.rmg.co.uk. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  3. ^ Smyth (1854), pp.488-9.
  4. ^ Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793 – 1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1844157174.