History Vault

First Rate Ship of the Line — Class Overview

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First Rate Ship of the Line — Class Overview

Generated illustration. Not a historical photograph. A British three-decker of the 100-gun class.

Overview

A first-rate was a British ship of the line rated at 100 guns or more, built with three complete gun decks. The vault already has two: HMS Victory — Overview (104 guns, launched 1765) and HMS Royal Sovereign — Overview (100 guns, launched 1786). Both flew flags at the Battle of Trafalgar 1805 — Overview.1

The Class

Age of Sail — Era Overview already treats first-rates as the top of the rating system. Victory’s own table calls the rate “First Rate (100+ guns)” and gives her 104 guns, about 3,500 tons, 227 feet on the gun deck, and a crew of 850. Royal Sovereign is the other filled 100-gun three-decker.2

A first-rate is not a 74. French workhorses such as Redoutable — French 74-gun Ship and the 80-gun Bucentaure — Overview are two-deckers. The British first-rate was the flagship type, used to carry an admiral into a set-piece.

In This Vault

Victory was Nelson Horatio — Biography Overview’s flag at Trafalgar and, earlier, Jervis John Earl St Vincent — Biography’s flag at the Battle of Cape St Vincent 1797 — Overview. Royal Sovereign was Collingwood Cuthbert — Biography’s flag in the lee column on 21 October 1805. Those four links are the class working as a graph, not a catalogue.

Construction methods, the “100-gun standard,” and why so few were built remain roadmap notes under First_Rate_Index. They are not filled here.

Sources

Ships in Class (filled)

Contrast

Cross-Domain

Footnotes

  1. Both ships already exist as sourced notes. Victory: @white2005nelson. Royal Sovereign: Knight / Adkin / Hughes from the 2026-05-11 ship pair. ↩

  2. Rate definition “100+ guns” is already on Victory’s specification table and on Age of Sail — Era Overview. Do not invent a full 1st–6th rate table until a licensed page is entered. ↩

Graph View

Backlinks