uss frolick

Capt. Audibly's and Dr. Natterling's adventures can be found on Amazon. The full title is "A Port Wine Sea, A Parody" by Susan Wenger.

That is fastinating. The famous US Frigate John Adams (Charlseton, SC, 1799) was called 'the two sided frigate' because she sailed significantly better on one tack than on the other. Naval Constructor Josiah Fox noted in Washington during a 1808 rebuild/razeeing, that she was several inches wider on one side. Fox believed her live oak hull was well worth retaining in service. One historian speculated that each side must have been built by different contractors, which is of course bunk. Your information was propably the true reason. Her building slip was possibly orientated east/west.

Trippwj: I would be happy to shamelesly plug my book: "Blakeley and the Wasp: The Cruise of 1814." Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 2001. It is the biography of Captain Johnston Blakeley, USN, of Pittsboro, NC.
 
Molasses: although William James was definitely an Ameri-phobe, he is acccurate, mostly, with the technical facts. He was good friends with the Shannon's Captain Phillip Brooke after the war. When the War of 1812 Broke out, James was trapped in NY. He soon found himself in jail after shooting his mouth off (he was a lawyer, so what did you expect?) , where he was treated very bady. He escaped, and made it on foot to Canada. His attitude in "Naval Occurances" reflects his experiences!!! He softens his tone a little in his monumental six volume "Naval History of Great Britain".
 
Also, Captain Jones of Wasp (1) specifically deliniates the enemy's force as "sixteen 32-pound carronades, four long twelves and two twelve pound carronades". He obviously mistook the Frolick's chase guns' calibers, but it was dark, and he was very busy. He probably just assumed that the enemy's chase guns were the same size as his, medium 12-pounders; the two sloops being nearly identical, save for the rig. If he was deliberately exaggerating, then he might have increased the number of enemy carronades instead for a greater effect. Four extra guns, none appaently used, and mounted at the extremities, were a disadvantage in those rough seas!
 
HMS Epervier, captured by USS Peacock in 1814, had swapped her two six-pounders out in Halifax for a pair of 18-pounder 'gunnades' to increase her firepower. They may have been carronades with trunion mountings. She landed her 12-pounder carronade then too.
 
HMS Reindeer, which fought the second Wasp, was one of six cruisers built of fir, a less expensive wood, so she sported an old fashioned square-tuck stern. There are seperate plans at the NMM for these six. One square-tucker was built of teak in India, HMS Zebra, me thinks. Reindeer originally had 32-pounder carronades, but was caught up in a storm and had to throw half her battery over the side to right herself. When she returned to Plymouth (or was it Portsmouth?) there were no replacement guns of that caliber available, so she took on board a new battery of 24-pounder carronades. The RN regulations forbade the mixing carronade calibers on a single deck, so Captain Manners had to turn in his remaining 32-pounders. James wrongly states that they swapped the 32's out for lighter 24's because the Reindeer was a tired old sloop. (She was lauched in 1806, and so she was only eight years old when taken.)
 
Whew, I talk too much. Ask Hank.