A French aviso colonial of the Bougainville class
The Portuguese aviso NRP Afonso de Albuquerque, in 1932.

An aviso (Portuguese and Spanish term for "advice", "notice" or "warning", formerly also an adviso) was originally a kind of dispatch boat or "advice boat". The term was later adopted by the French and Portuguese navies to classify their medium-sized warships designed for colonial service. The term continued to be used in the French Navy to classify the D'Estienne d'Orves-class patrol frigates until 2012, when the remaining ships of the class were reclassified as offshore patrol ships. It is similar to the modern use of "sloop" in other countries.

The Dictionnaire de la Marine Française 1788 1792 (by Nicolas-Charles Romme) describes avisos as "small boats designed to carry orders or dispatches". This use became obsolete with the development of means of communicating detailed information at a distance.


The Portuguese Navy used avisos to operate in the waters of the Portuguese Empire. The Portuguese built 1st rate avisos (Afonso de Albuquerque class) of 2,400 tons and 2nd rate avisos (Gonçalo Velho and Pedro Nunes classes) of 1,200 to 1,700 tons. In 1932, the Portuguese Flower-class sloops were also classified as 2nd rate avisos.



See also


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