First rate Ship-of-the-line – 3 Deckers
Jun 25, 2011 First rate Ship-of-the-line
First rate ship 1794.
“First-raters” was the designation used by the Royal Navy for its most powerful and largest ships of the line. These warships mounted 100 guns or more, typically on three gundecks and carried over 850 crew with a displacement in excess of 2,000 tons.
In the original rating system from the 1670s, first-rates were ships of exactly 100 guns, but as time passed, ships were built with more guns, and they too were called first-rates. There was no standardisation between navies of the time and hence “Raters” were classed differently between navies.
Although nominally very powerful, first-rates tended to be slow and invariably expensive to operate. For stability, the lowest gundeck had to be very close to the water, and in anything but calm water the gunports had to be kept closed, rendering the entire deck useless. As a result, the few first-rates were typically reserved as commanding admirals’ flagships.
These being the most powerful ships of the navy, it was common to compare them with the navies of other nations, and frequently one sees the largest ships of those navies being referred as first-rates, even though only the Royal Navy used the formal six-step rating system.
The most famous and only surviving first-rate ship of the line is HMS Victory, Admiral Horatio Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar. She is also the worlds longest serving ship still in commission and flying the White Ensign.
Configuations:-
120 guns 3 decker
112 guns 3 decker
110 guns 3 decker
100 guns 3 decker
108 guns 3 decker
106 guns 3 decker
104 guns 3 decker
