Bonetta group sloop

The Bonetta group was a batch of eight 200-ton sloops of wooden construction built for the Royal Navy during 1732.

They followed on two previous sloops - the Grampus and the larger Wolf - built a year earlier.

An additional vessel – Trial (which had been ordered on 16 November 1731, but suspended on 7 January 1732) – was re-ordered on 6 July to be built to the same specification.

The actual individual design was left up to the Master Shipwright in each Royal Dockyard at which they were built (except for Hound and Trial, which were built by Deptford's Master Shipwright – Richard Stacey – but were to a design by Jacob Acworth).

Although fitted with snow rigs and initially armed with eight 3-pounder guns (except Shark which was rigged as a ketch and fitted with eight 4-pounders), this group was built with seven pairs of gunports on the upper deck (each port flanked by two pairs of row-ports).