What is "ketches"

Usage examples of "ketches".

He had even speculated that the French were frightened that the bomb ketches might be attacked by the Algerine pirates, still occasionally raiding the Italian coasts.

Renouf knew it could bode ill for the two bomb ketches, because commanding officers had been court-martialled for much less.

They were not properly designed bomb ketches, specially built in one of the naval yards, but merchant ship hulls which had been adapted - strengthened to take the weight of the mortars and their enormous recoil, the mainmast stepped further aft, and the rigging simplified so that no shrouds, halyards, sheets and stays went across the fields of fire or, equally important, were close enough to the muzzle flash to catch fire.

Apparently the ketches were far more important to the French than he had thought, and they were to be escorted by two frigates.

It was now the 8th, and the two bomb ketches had to be watered, provisioned and anchored outside Porto Ercole by the 13th, when the frigates were due.

But why on earth were the French sending a couple of bomb ketches and a couple of frigates to Crete with cavalry and artillery?

Fifteen hundred yards plus the extra two hundred yards or so distance from the ketches to the beach.

Anyway, the Admiralty named most of their bomb ketches after volcanoes, several of which began with "V"

I have a feeling that the French are simply using Crete to assemble a powerful force - a fleet complete right down to bomb ketches, and transports, and an army to travel with it.

All I meant was that I can see no reason why the bomb ketches shouldn't be anchored outside Porto Ercole waiting for them.

The bomb ketches can anchor wherever they want, and because they have the advantage in range they might as well choose a place beyond the reach of any guns there might be in the forts.

You'd better work out some system of signals between us and the bomb ketches so that we don't have to hail in English.

They would have seen the bomb ketches coming down from the north and noted that they were well ahead of schedule, which was probably a fairly unusual situation for the French to meet.

He had discovered that two French frigates were due in Porto Ercole to embark cavalry, foot soldiers and artillery, and then escort the two bomb ketches to Crete.

He had been bright enough thus far to wonder why the French thought it necessary to escort the bomb ketches when they knew that the Royal Navy had long since been forced out of the Mediterranean.