United Kingdom of Netherlands and Wallonia

bit of a side projet, just got inspired to do few sail ships

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Tijger, Luipaard-class 44 gun 5th Rate Frigate.
characteristics
length 154 feet (46.9 meters) (Tijger and Jaguar being half a meter shorter)
beam 45 feet (13.7 meters)
draft: 15.12 feet (4.6 meters)
displacement: 910 tons

Armament: x28 18 pounder long guns on a main gun deck, 16 9 pounder guns on quarter and forecastle decks or alternatively 32 pounder carronades (from 1803-end of a career as warship)

maximum speed: 14 knots (Tijger and Jaguar of being slightly improved designed could hit 14.2 knots in a good wind)

crew: 260-320 officers, sailors and marines

in commission (Republic Netherlands/United Kingdom of Netherlands/United Kingdom of Netherlands and Wallonia): 1796-1850
Edo Japan (Date clan): 1851-1866, Japanese Imperial Navy: 1866-1872, Japanese Imperial Navy training vessel: 1872-1944, hulk: 1945-1991, Museum and tourist ship: 1991-today
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most decorated and legendary Dutch battlecruiser of 2 Great Wars HrMS Tijger wouldn't be the only ship in Dutch Naval history to bare same name and in fact she was a 3rd ship named after big asian cat. the Tijger we are talking about now was 44 gun 5th rate frigate ordered by then the Dutch Republican Navy. her name is derived from old Dutch Tyger which was the ship used by the Dutch captain Adriaen Block during his 1613 voyage to explore the East Coast of North America and the present day Hudson River. Tijger was a third ship in a class of Luipaard-class 5th rate frigates and was build in Amsterdam in a time when a revolution sparked in France which on it self was heavily inspired by American War of Independance lessons of which neutral Netherlands took like a sponge. Tijger's greenheart keel was laid in March 19th of 1794 and was launched in May 15th 1796 and accepted by Thomas Mayer and commisioned in July 12 of a same year just 3 days after French invasion of Netherlands. her first mission was scouting for enemy ships near the English channel but was recalled and escorted evecuating Dutch Government to Kaap the voyage that took 3 months, she would then recive new mission by the Admiralty to harass French shipping in a Caribbean and Atlantic from 1798 to the end of 1803 she took as a prize 14 French trade ships and sinking or burning 4 others as well as sinking Spanish 36 gun frigate Bazan. After succesful commerse raiding and signiture of truse she went to Southapton and joined Anglo-Dutch fleet under command of Horatio Nelson (Dutch giving only 2 1st rate, 2 2nd rate, 1 3rd rate ships of a line, 3 6th rate frigates and 1 more 5th rate frigate the sistership of Tijger - Leeuw) During Traflgar campaign Tijger would scout for Nelson's fleet and would manage to capture french frigate Themis

In October 21st Tijger and Leeuw would participate in Battle of Trafalgar but didn't commit any serious action in a line of battle rather fighting French frigates off a main battle which were fought by their larger cousins. Tijger would annihalate French Brig Furret with its full salvo racking her stern. hours later Leeuw was at risk of being captured by Hermione (Hortense class) while the latter began boarding her but was quickly relieved by her sister and 2 overwhelmed french frigate capturing her while HMS Surprise under command of Jack Aubray (yes THAT Surprise and THAT Lucky Jack) were holding French frigates from them with her gunfire. During the battle Leeuw lost her main mast and 23 dead, 34 injured, while Tijger lost her bowsprit and 31 dead, 41 injured. both ships were at repairs in Southapton for 2 months.

After repairs in in January 1807 Tijger got mission to intecept sink, capture or burn french 50 gun 4th rate Frigate - Axios, sister of semi-legendary Acheron which was captured by HMS Surprise on June 2 1806, since the characteristics of Acheron-class frigates were fully known by this time thanks to captain Aubray, Luipaard-class frigates were demed as a perfect match for Acheron's sister. On November 4 1808 Tijger would find and ambush Axios near Malabar coast (India) in a fog, if Surprise's 9 pounder guns couldn't penetrate French frigate then Tijger's 18 pounders could do that with relative ease. gunfight between Tijger and Axios was short in favoring Dutch Frigate, Axios managed to run away and disengage but week later was found and yet another gunfight occured and after a 2 hours of gunfight Axios would surrender, Axios was in such a bad shape after it that Mayer ordered to burn her, Tijger lost 12 of her crew dead and 19 injured, Axios lost 49 dead and 76 wounded.

after returning to Southapton and short repairs her yet another mission was to capture of her own sister - Jaguar which was commisioned into French navy after French Invasion of Netherlands in 1796. Jaguar was heading hunting British and Dutch whalers in a pacific. On September 3rd Mayer recieved message that Jaguar stopped in Temuco for resupply, in a harbor there was also 34 gun frigate Santa María de la Cabeza, On the night of 5 February 8 1810, two silent columns of boats under command of Thomas Mayer, captured Jaguar and took her away, Santa María de la Cabeza pursued but was later ambushed by Tijger and sunk her after an hour of fight. such move would inspire Thomas Cochrane for similar action in 1820 against Spain during war of Independence of Chile

After returning her rebellious sister back to the family she would join her sisters Panther and Jagluipaard in a Baltic sea fighting of Danish in 2nd Battle of Copenhagen (Jagluipaard running a ground and taken by Danish) and Russians sinking Russian 44 gun Frigate Mstislavets In May 1808 and then month later capturing 32 gun frigate Voz‘mislav which was renamed "Tijger Junior" as well 2 trade brigs as a bonus

in 1810 Tijger, Panther and Leeuw would be send to Dutch East Indies and in In August of 1811, they with assistance of present Dutch and British fleet repelled french invasion of Java and capturing number of troop ships. when war of 1812 between Great Britain and United States occured British asked for all Dutch frigates but Dutch government declined and pointing out that Netherlands would only fight war against Napoleon and not wars of British interests. While Napoleon was in meantime comprehending what on Earth he had done by invading Russia, Tijger was in a cargo mission delivering some crucial supplies all way from East Indies, crossing Cape of Good Hope and to Sevastopol through Mediterranean and Black Seas only later to returning to Britain and gone for patrol into Atlantic. in 1814 Napoleonic Wars would practically end with exception of annoyance called '100 days of Napoleon' in 1815 going back to Netherlands which was from now on Monarchy, she would put into ordinary with her sisters until 1821 when she would recommisioned and send to East Indies for typical Anti-Piracy patrols until 1825 with short interuption of being called to link up with Frederick William Beechey'd squadron aboard exploring the Alaskan coast from Point Barrow to the Bering Strait and send back to East Indies after an Expedition for another anti-piracy patrols which would go on from 1827 to 1831 only then being send for refit and placed into ordinary until 1838 when she would be recommisoned again and send into Pacific participating in 1st Opium war.

She would be present in a Battle of Chuenpi, due to her size and number of guns she was a main target for Qing War junks which attempt to close the range and board her but her 18 pounder artillery battered Chinese War junks to submision with each single salvo while HMS Volage and HMS Hyacinth were also hammering enemy salvo by salvo, Tijger alone sunk 5 of chinese warships while Volage blew up 2 and sunk another 2, overall desicive Anglo-Dutch victory. in June 1842 Tijger would take part in Battle of Woosung along with her was her old mate from Trafalgar and generaly famous British Frigate - HMS Surprise, Tijger assisted in suppressing Chinse fortifications but got distracted when chinese war junks showed up starting to commit slaughter sinking at least 6 of Chinese ships, month after Battle of Woosung 1st Opium war concluded and in 1845 Tijger made a trading voyages to Japanese port of Nagasaki trading some goods and sail back to East Indies doing such voyages numerous times In 1850 Matthew C. Perry arrived to Japan basially forcing to open the country from a 2 centuries long isolation policy of Tokugawa shogunate (happened slightly earlier then in our world). Tokugawa shogunate understood their navy no math to any European Fleets and so they took some actions, for example buying HrMS Tijger with her sister HrMs Jaguar which were trading in Nagasaki although process of handing over Tijger and Jaguar to Japan was bit long, Tijger was paid and used by Date clan of Sendai, commanded by Akatsuka Genroku and was renamed to Akitsu Maru though vast majority of her Dutch crew remained signing profitable contract by teaching to how operate European sail ship and creating a very first modern naval officer core for Japan, she became a flagship of Japanese Navy until 1868 when former Ironclad CSS Stonewall now renamed Azuma would be acquired while Jaguar was also in Date cln but was renamed to Nigitsu Maru.

Akitsu Maru and Later IJN Akitsu Maru
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Now Akitsu Maru was participating in every Naval engagements of Boshin war of 1866-1869 but was used as second if not third line ship due to being a wooden ship in ironclad party. After a Boshin war both Akitsu Maru and Nigitsu Maru were used as training vessels all way to 1944, Nigitsu Maru was lost during US firebombing of Nagasaki in June 1944 being burned all way to the waterline, after Japanese surrender in December 7 1944 and subsiquent conlusion of 2nd Great War and rebuild of Japan Akitsu Maru was taken and rebuild as hulk, in 1992 Akitsu Maru was in bad shape upon seeing it Akio Nakamura Japanese naval officer of WW2 who was a cadet on board of Akistsu Maru in 1938-1941 raised some money from his pocket and partly from public crowdfunding for her restoration to how she would look like in 1850 when she was acquired by Japan as well as being capable of sailing to the sea, she is usually moored at Sendai Port Park flying both Japanese and Dutch flags, occaionally sailing through Japan 2 times a year. She was rented in 2007 for film shooting playing as USS Shannon for movie "Master of the Seas" based on one of Jack Aubray's career episodes during War of 1812 and in 2018 (basically Master and Commander but actually a second movie in this Alternative Universe

) was again rented for the HBO mini-series "Horatio Nelson" for last episode portraying Battle of Trafalgar and actual Tijger's role in a Frigate action of a battle.

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