HMS Nimble, 14 guns, Cutter, 1812

Nimble:
Cutter rig
Built: Thomas Gely, shipbuilder, Cowes, Isle of Wight, UK
Laid and Launched: 1811
144  Tons; Length: 63′ 3″ (19.3 m); Beam: 23′ 5″ (7.2 m); Hold Depth: 10′ 4″ (3.1 m);
Armament: Guns: 10 × 12-lb (5.4 kg) carronades;

The cutter rig was developed outside the navy, among the working and fishing craft around the coast. By 1793 cutters had begun to appear in the navy and at the beginning of the 19^th century about 100 cutters were in commission. The sail plan appears very large, but a great amount of area was required to drive the broad-beamed heavily built hull through the water. Nimble had a beam of 24 feet on an overall length of 69 feet. Many of these vessels were employed by the Revenue service where their speed and weatherliness made them ideal for combating the great numbers of small craft engaged in smuggling during the French wars and later.  Shortage of oak in the latter years of the Napoleonic wars led to many of these cutters being built of pine or cedar. HMS Nimble was the name vessel of a two-vessel class of cutters built at Cowes in 1811 for the Royal Navy. Lieutenant John Reynolds commissioned her in 1812. On 6 March 1812 she captured Danish sloop No.5. On 25 May she brought the Danish brig Anna Maria, captured 12 April, into Hull with her cargo of hemp a prize to Nimble. On 11 July she captured the Danish vessel Enigheden. Nimble was wrecked on a sunken rock a half-dozen miles from the Sälö Beacon, Sweden, during a violent storm in the Kattegat on 6 October 1812. Apparently, insufficient allowance had been made for the strong currents.