Amazon-class sloop

Last updated

HMS Dryad (1866).jpg
HMS Dryad at anchor, with sails airing
Class overview
NameAmazon-class sloops
Builders
  • Pembroke Dockyard
  • Devonport Dockyard
OperatorsNaval Ensign of the United Kingdom.svg  Royal Navy
Built1865–1866
In commission1865–1885
Completed6
Lost2
General characteristics
Type Screw sloop
Displacement1574 tons
Length187 ft (57 m)
Beam36 ft (11 m)
Draught17 ft (5.2 m) [1]
Installed power300 horsepower [1]
Propulsion
  • Single screw
  • Two-cylinder horizontal single-expansion steam engine
Sail plan Barque
Complement150 [1]
Armament

The Amazon class was a class of six screw sloops of wooden construction built for the Royal Navy between 1865 and 1866.

Contents

Construction

Design

Designed by Edward Reed, [2] the Royal Navy Director of Naval Construction, they were equipped with a ram bow. [2] The hull was of wooden construction, but they were the first class of sloops to incorporate a form of composite construction; they had iron cross beams while retaining wooden framing. [2]

Propulsion

Propulsion was provided by a two-cylinder horizontal single-expansion steam engine by Ravenhill, Salkeld & Company driving a single 15 ft (4.6 m) screw. Vestal and Nymphe were fitted with three-cylinder Maudslay engines. [2]

Sail plan

All the ships of the class were built with a barque rig. [2]

Armament

The class was designed with two 7-inch (6½-ton) muzzle-loading rifled guns mounted on slides on centre-line pivots, and two 64-pounder muzzle-loading rifled guns on broadside trucks. Dryad, Nymphe and Vestal were rearmed in the early 1870s with an armament of nine 64-pounder muzzle-loading rifled guns, four each side and a centre-line pivot mount at the bow. [2]

Ships

NameShip BuilderLaunchedFate
Amazon Pembroke Dockyard1865Sunk in collision with SS Osprey, off Start Point, English Channel 10 July 1866 [1]
Vestal Pembroke Dockyard1865Sold to Castle for breaking in December 1884 [2]
Niobe Devonport Dockyard1866Wrecked off Cape Blanc on Miquelon Island, off the Atlantic Coast of Newfoundland and Labrador 21 May 1874 [1]
Dryad Devonport Dockyard1866Sold in September 1885 and broken up in April 1886 [2]
Daphne Pembroke Dockyard1866Sold for breaking on 7 November 1882 [2]
Nymphe Devonport Dockyard1866Sold for breaking in December 1884 [2]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Cruisers at Battleships-Cruisers website" . Retrieved 17 September 2008.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Winfield, R.; Lyon, D. (2004). The Sail and Steam Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815–1889. London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN   978-1-86176-032-6. OCLC   52620555.

Bibliography