HMS Wolf (1742)

HMS Wolf was a 14-gun snow-rigged sloop of the Royal Navy, launched in 1742 as the first of three Wolf class sloops constructed for action against French and Spanish privateers during the War of Jenkins' Ear.

Construction
Wolf was the first of three small, fast vessels built for coastal patrol and Atlantic service and designated by Admiralty as the "Wolf" class. Her design was similar to that of the preceding Drake class sloops but larger and more heavily armed. Construction was contracted to civilian shipwright Thomas West, who had overseen construction of HMS Drake (1741) a year earlier.

As designed, Wolf's dimensions were in keeping with other vessels of her class with an overall length of 87 ft, a beam of 25 ft and measuring 243 $74⁄94$ tonnes burthen. She had two masts, square-rigged and supported by a trysail mast aft of the main mast. Constructed with eight pairs of gunports, she was initially fitted with fourteen four-pounder cannons in addition to twelve deck-mounted half-pounder swivel guns.

Construction took seven months from the laying of the keel in July 1741, to her launch in February 1742, at a building cost of £1,793 and an additional ₤1653 for fitting out.