The Calypso class comprised two steam corvettes (later classified as third-class cruisers) of the Royal Navy. Built for distant cruising in the heyday of the British Empire, they served with the fleet until the early twentieth century, when they became training ships. Remnants of both survive, after a fashion; HMSCalliope in the name of the naval reserve unit the ship once served, and HMSCalypso both in the name of a civilian charity and the more corporeal form of the hull, now awash in a cove off Newfoundland.
The class exemplifies the transitional nature of the late Victorian navy. In design, materials, armament, and propulsion the Calypsos show evidence of their wooden sailing antecedents, blended with characteristics of the all-metal mastless steam warships which followed. Their appearance and layout was similar to the "pure" sailing corvettes, with boiler rooms, machinery spaces, ventilators, and a flue added. Of iron and steel construction, they had coppering over timber below the waterline, as did older wooden vessels. Their armament was not in turrets or barbettes, but arranged in a central broadside battery, with the four largest guns on sponsons to give larger arcs of fire. And they had both a powerful steam engine and an extensive rig of sail. They formed the last class of sailing corvettes in the Royal Navy.[1][Note 1]
Calypso and Calliope comprise Calypso class, a successor to the successful Comus class, all designed by Nathaniel Barnaby. The vessels were screw corvettes or small cruisers, and were among the Royal Navy’s last sailing corvettes. They supplemented an extensive sail rig with a powerful engine.
In profile they resembled older wooden sailing frigates, from bowsprit to stern gallery. The ports in the gallery were false, and there were no quarter galleries.[2] Other differences included a nearly straight stem, a shorter battery, and sponsoned guns on the corners of the battery. Above the decks they had a full suite of masts and spars, standing and running rigging, and square and fore-and-aft sails. The shrouds were not attached to chainplates on the outside of the hull, as in older vessels, but to the inside of the bulwarks. Interposed between the masts and rigging were the ventilators and stack of the steam plant. In plan the ships shows decks common to older sailing cruising vessels, including a poop deck at the rear, the overhang of which sheltered a wheel on the quarterdeck below. The guns were all on the highest continuous deck;[3] the battery was shorter than on wooden vessels with full-length gun decks, as the class carried fewer (although more powerful) guns than corvettes and frigates in the classic age of sail; all guns were carried in the waist of the ship, between the poop and forecastle.
The armament of the class consisted of naval rifles – breechloaders with rifling in their bores to impart a spin and therefore stability to projectiles in flight. The Calypsos differed from the previous Comus class, as they had new 6-inch rifles in place of the 7-inch muzzleloaders and 64-pounders that originally armed the predecessor class, and 5-inch guns in a battery between the 6-inch guns. There were four 6-inch (152.4mm) breechloaders in sponsons fore and aft on each side, twelve 5-inch (127.0mm) breechloaders in broadside between the 6-inch guns, and six quick-firing Nordenfelts.[4]
The Calypsos were slightly longer than their predecessors, and displaced 390 tons more.[5] Their engines were of 4,023 i.h.p., over 50% more powerful than those of their nine predecessors, which gave them one more knot of speed.[5] These compound engines could drive the ships at 13¾ knots, or 14¾ knots with forced draught.[6] The hulls of these vessels were of course adapted for the screw driven by their reciprocating steam engines. In common with older vessels, they were coppered to reduce fouling from marine growth, and the copper sheathing was affixed to timber as in wooden ships, but that timber was not structural, but simply encased the metal hull beneath.[7] Royal Navy corvettes had been built of iron since 1867, but the Comus class and the Calypsos were built of steel.[1]
They carried a barque rig of sail on three masts,[Note 2] including a full set of studding sails on fore and mainmasts.[8] This rig enabled them to serve in areas where coaling stations were rare, and to rely on their sails for propulsion. That flexibility made them was well-suited to distant cruising service and trade protection for the British Empire.[6]
The vessels had two complete decks, upper and lower, with poop and forecastle decks. The poop contained cabins for the captain, first lieutenant, and navigating officer, with the double wheel sheltered under its forward end. The forecastle was used for the heads and working space for the cables. Between these was the open quarterdeck in the waist of the ship, on which the battery was located. Under the lower deck were spaces for water, provisions, coal, and magazines for shell and powder. Amidships were the engine and boiler rooms. These were covered by an armoured deck, 1.5 inches (38mm) thick and approximately 103 feet (31m) long. This armour was about 3 feet (0.91m) underneath the lower deck, and the space between could be used for additional coal bunkerage. The machinery spaces were flanked by coal bunkers, affording the machinery and magazines some protection from the sides. The lower deck, above the machinery spaces, was used for berthing of the ship's company; officers aft, warrant and petty officers forward, and ratings amidships, as was traditional. The tops of the coal bunkers, which projected above deck level, could be used for seating on one side of the mess tables, which were arranged fore-and-aft. The living spaces were well-ventilated and an improvement over prior vessels.[9]
Both vessels had relatively short careers with the fleet and in the 1890s were relegated to training and subsidiary duties. They were present at the 1897 Review of the Fleet, held to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.[10]
Calliope had achieved fame as the only ship to escape from the 1889 Apia cyclone, and thereafter was known as the "Hurricane Jumper". After fleet service, the vessel became a drill ship on the Tyne in 1907. After the old cruiser was discarded in 1951, the "stone frigate" (shore establishment) operating there was given the name of HMSCalliope.[11]
Calypso had a less eventful and shorter naval career than Calliope, but spent more time at sea. As part of the sail training squadron, Calypso cruised in home waters, the North Sea, and the Arctic and Atlantic oceans. In 1902, after that service ended, the ship was sent to the colony of Newfoundland, and served there as a stationary training vessel for the Newfoundland Royal Naval Reserve before and during the First World War. In 1922 the vessel was declared surplus and sold out of the service, and thereafter used as a storage hulk in Lewisporte. The Calypso Foundation, a local charity engaged in training the developmentally disabled, was named after the old training ship.[12] The ship's hull was towed away to a coastal bay and burned out. It is still there, awash in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean.[13][Note 3]
↑ The term "corvette" was reintroduced for the Flower and Castle classes of the Second World War.
↑ While it has been stated the class had barque rigs, Paine (2000), vol. 799, p. 29, and some images show that, at times they may have been ship rigged, as other drawings and photographs show yards and square sails on the mizzenmast. Archibald (1970), p. 49; J.S. Virtue & Co., lithograph of HMS "Calliope", 3rd Class CruiserArchived 8 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine ; and images linked above at See also, and below.
↑ The hull lies in Jobs Cove, off Burnt Bay on the north coast of Newfoundland. An image is here (the hull on the left is that of Calypso), and a search of YouTube will yield amateur footage of the hull.
Related Research Articles
A brig is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: two masts which are both square-rigged. Brigs originated in the second half of the 18th century and were a common type of smaller merchant vessel or warship from then until the latter part of the 19th century. In commercial use, they were gradually replaced by fore-and-aft rigged vessels such as schooners, as owners sought to reduce crew costs by having rigs that could be handled by fewer men. In Royal Navy use, brigs were retained for training use when the battle fleets consisted almost entirely of iron-hulled steamships.
In the 18th century and most of the 19th, a sloop-of-war in the Royal Navy was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. The rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above; thus, the term sloop-of-war encompassed all the unrated combat vessels, including the very small gun-brigs and cutters. In technical terms, even the more specialised bomb vessels and fireships were classed as sloops-of-war, and in practice these were employed in the sloop role when not carrying out their specialised functions.
Steam frigates and the smaller steam corvettes, steam sloops, steam gunboats and steam schooners, were steam-powered warships that were not meant to stand in the line of battle. There were some exceptions like for example the French Napoléon class steam ship of the line was meant to stand in the line of battle, making it the world's first steam battleship. The first such ships were paddle steamers. Later on the invention of screw propulsion enabled construction of steam-powered versions of the traditional ships of the line, frigates, corvettes, sloops and gunboats.
HMSZealous was one of the three ships forming the second group of wooden steam battleships selected in 1860 for conversion to ironclads. This was done in response to the perceived threat to Britain offered by the large French ironclad building programme. The ship was ordered to the West Coast of Canada after she was completed to represent British interests in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Zealous became the flagship for the Pacific Station for six years until she was relieved in 1872. She was refitted upon her arrival and subsequently became the guard ship at Southampton until she was paid off in 1875. The ship was in reserve until she was sold for scrap in 1886.
HMS Monarch was the first seagoing British warship to carry her guns in turrets, and the first British warship to carry guns of 12-inch (300 mm) calibre.
HMS Calliope was a Calypso-class corvette of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom which served from 1887 until 1951. Exemplifying the transitional nature of the late Victorian navy, Calliope was a sailing corvette—the last such ship built for the Royal Navy—but supplemented the full sail rig with a powerful engine. Steel was used for the hull, and like the earlier iron-hulled corvettes, Calliope was cased with timber and coppered below the waterline, in the same manner as wooden ships.
HMS Calypso was a corvette of the Royal Navy and the lead ship of its namesake class. Built for distant cruising in the heyday of the British Empire, the vessel served as a warship and training vessel until 1922, when it was sold.
The Comus class was a class of Royal Navy steam corvettes, re-classified as third-class cruisers in 1888. All were built between 1878 and 1881. The class exemplifies the transitional nature of the late Victorian navy. In design, materials, armament, and propulsion the class members resemble their wooden sailing antecedents, but blended with characteristics of the all-metal mastless steam cruisers which followed.
HMS Comus was a corvette of the Royal Navy. She was the name ship of her class. Launched in April 1878, the vessel was built by Messrs. J. Elder & Co of Glasgow at a cost of £123,000.
HMS Cordelia was a Comus-class corvette of the Royal Navy, built at the Portsmouth Dockyard and launched on 25 October 1881.
HMS Rambler was an Algerine-class gunvessel of the Royal Navy, built by John Elder & Co., Glasgow and launched on 26 January 1880. She was commissioned as a survey vessel in 1884 and served in Chinese waters during the 1880s and 1890s. She provided men to a naval brigade during the Boer War and was sold on 23 January 1907. The work of this vessel is now remembered in Hong Kong by the Rambler Channel near Tsing Yi.
The Algerine-class gunvessel was a class of three Royal Navy composite gunvessels built in 1880. Two of them were sold after only ten years of service, but the other was converted to a survey ship before commissioning and survived in this role until 1907.
The Arab-class gunvessels were a pair of composite gunboats built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1870s.
HMS Arab was an Arab-class composite gunvessel built for the Royal Navy in 1874. She served in the East Indies and was sold in 1889.
HMS Lily was an Arab-class composite gunvessel built for the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1874, saw service in Chinese and North American waters, and was wrecked on the coast of Labrador on 16 September 1888.
HMS Champion was one of nine Comus-class corvettes of the Royal Navy, built in the late 1870s and early 1880s to a design by Nathaniel Barnaby. Champion was one of three in the class built by J. Elder & Co., Govan, Scotland and was launched on 1 July 1878. She was the third vessel under this name in the Royal Navy.
The Bramble-class gunboat was a type of warship used by the Royal Navy between the 1890s and the 1920s. The four ships of this class were notable as the final development of the Victorian gunboat tradition, and for being one of the last classes of warship designed to travel under sail. One of them, HMS Thistle, retained a functional sailing rig into the mid-1920s.
HMS Canada was a Comus-class screw corvette of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1881 and sold for scrap in 1897. Her bow badge was removed prior to being sold for scrap and is displayed in the Maritime Museum of British Columbia.
HMS Cleopatra was a Royal Navy Comus-class screw corvette built in 1878.
Paine, Lincoln P. (2000). Warships of the World to 1900. Warships of the World: An Historical Encyclopedia. New York: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN0-395-98414-9..
Winfield, R.; Lyon, D. (2004). The Sail and Steam Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815–1889. London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN978-1-86176-032-6. OCLC52620555.
Photograph c. 1910 (sic: vessel is shown in condition prior to 1902 modifications), starboard broadside view, sails set on fore and main, yards on mizzen, jibs set.
Photograph, port broadside view, no sails set, yards on mizzen.
Photographs showing Calypso/Briton and personnel in Newfoundland.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
Royal Navy 
