 The two sides set about building fleets: the British at Saint-Jean and the Americans at the other end of the lake in Skenesborough (present-day Whitehall, New York). While planning Quebec's defenses in 1775, General Carleton had anticipated the problem of transportation on Lake Champlain, and had requested the provisioning of prefabricated ships from Europe. By the time Carleton's army reached Saint-Jean, ten such ships had arrived. These ships and more were assembled by skilled shipwrights on the upper Richelieu River. Also assembled there was HMS Inflexible, a 180-ton warship they disassembled at Quebec City and transported upriver in pieces. In total, the British fleet (25 armed vessels) had more firepower than the Americans'15 vessels, with more than 80 guns outweighing the 74 smaller American guns. Two of Carleton's ships, Inflexible (18 12-pounders) and HMS Thunderer (six 24-pound guns, six 12-pound guns, and two howitzers), by themselves outgunned the combined firepower of the American fleet. In addition to Inflexible and Thunderer, the fleet included the schooners Maria (14 guns), Carleton (12 guns), and Loyal Convert (6 guns), and 20 single-masted gunboats each armed with two cannons.
