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{ { Infobox ship characteristics
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|Ship class=
|Ship type=Brig-sloop
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|Ship tons burthen=238 bm
|Ship length=*Overall: Keel: |Ship beam= |Ship height= |Ship draught= |Ship draft= |Ship depth= |Ship hold depth= |Ship decks= |Ship deck clearance= |Ship ramps= |Ship ice class= |Ship power= |Ship propulsion=Sails |Ship sail plan= |Ship speed= |Ship range= |Ship endurance= |Ship test depth= |Ship boats= |Ship capacity= |Ship troops= |Ship complement=*Sloop-of-war:75 Survey voyages: On [[second voyage of HMS Beagle|Beagles second voyage]], 65 plus 9 supernumeraries |Ship crew= |Ship time to activate= |Ship sensors= |Ship EW= |Ship armament=*Sloop-of-war:2 × 6-pounder bow chasers + 8 × 18-pounder carronades Survey voyages:6 guns |Ship armour= |Ship armor= |Ship aircraft= |Ship aircraft facilities= |Ship notes= }} |}
The Cherokee class''' was a class of brig-sloops of the Royal Navy, mounting ten guns. Brig-sloops were sloops-of-war with two masts (a fore mast and a taller main mast) rather than the three masts of ship sloops. Orders for 115 vessels were placed, including five which were cancelled and six for which the orders were replaced by ones for equivalent steam-powered paddle vessels.
Many of these sailing vessels served as mail packet ships, and more than eight assisted with exploration and surveys. The best known of the class was , then considerably modified for Beagles second survey voyage under Robert FitzRoy, with the gentleman naturalist Charles Darwin on board as a self-funded supernumerary.
Design
The carronade, nicknamed the "smasher" or "devil gun", was significantly smaller and lighter than conventional cannon. It was also found to have a more destructive broadside at close range, so that a smaller (and cheaper) ship could be more effective in naval actions than a much larger man-of-war. Sir Henry Peake designed a small ship to operate in both shallow and deep waters, carrying eight 16-pounder or 18-pounder carronades plus two long 6-pounder cannon as forward-mounted chase guns.
He completed the design for the Cherokee class in 1807, which was approved on 26 November 1807, with the first four vessels having been ordered in March 1807 but not laid down until December; by the end of 1808 another thirty vessels had been ordered to this design. After these 34, another two were ordered in 1812 which were built of teak at Bombay. The design was revived after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and another 78 were ordered in two batches between 1817 and 1827. The first batch of these later vessels consisted of 35 orders (of which one was cancelled) whilst the second amounted to 44 new vessels of which four were cancelled and six replaced by orders for paddle vessels.
The class was much criticised, being popularly known as 'coffin brigs', following the loss by wrecking or foundering of a number of them. Almost a quarter of them were lost, and they were also nicknamed "Half Tide Rock" as they had low freeboard so the deck was frequently awash with water, and solid bulwarks preventing the water from being shed quickly.These open flush-decked ships lacked a forecastle to deflect heavy seas crashing over the bow: one was added to Beagle in 1825 before its first voyage, together with a mizzen mast which improved the handling. Despite these modifications to the design, Captain Pringle Stokes protested that "our decks were constantly flooded".
Further extensive modifications were made for the second voyage of HMS Beagle. Darwin noted in his journal in April 1833 that "It blew half a gale of wind; but it was fair & we scudded before it. — Our decks fully deserved their nickname of a "half tide rock"; so constantly did the water flow over them", but John Lort Stokes who was on all three survey expeditions praised Beagle: "The reader will be surprised to learn that she belongs to that much-abused class, the '10-gun brigs'—coffins, as they are not infrequently designated in the service; notwithstanding which, she has proved herself, under every possible variety of trial, in all kinds of weather, an excellent sea boat."