HMS Miranda c. 1884. | |
History | |
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United Kingdom | |
Name | HMS Miranda |
Builder | Devonport Royal Dockyard |
Cost | Hull £37,000, machinery £11,700 [1] |
Laid down | 8 July 1878 |
Launched | 30 September 1879 |
Commissioned | 22 July 1880 |
Fate |
|
General characteristics [1] | |
Class and type | Doterel-class sloop |
Displacement | 1,130 tons |
Length | 170 ft (52 m) pp |
Beam | 36 ft (11 m) |
Draught | 15 ft 9 in (4.80 m) |
Installed power | 1,020 ihp (760 kW) |
Propulsion |
|
Sail plan | Barque rigged |
Speed | 11 knots (20 km/h) |
Range | 1,480 nmi (2,740 km) at 10 kn (19 km/h) from 150 tons of coal |
Complement | 140–150 |
Armament |
|
HMS Miranda was a Doterel-class sloop of the Royal Navy, built at Devonport Dockyard and launched on 30 September 1879. [2]
This class of ship was part of the transition of royal navy ships from sail to steam propulsion. A single screw was mounted in a frame that was raised when the ship was under full sail, which reduced the drag effect of the screw. It's coal burning boilers were vented through a telescopic funnel, which was lowered when the ship was under sail, so as not to interfere with the sails; [3] hence the royal navy order ‘up funnel, down screw’. [4]
The Doterel class was designed by Nathaniel Barnaby as a development of William Henry White's 1874 Osprey-class sloop. The graceful clipper bow of the Ospreys was replaced by a vertical stem and the engines were more powerful. The hull was of composite construction, with wooden planks over an iron frame. [1]
Power was provided by three cylindrical boilers, which supplied steam at 60 pounds per square inch (410 kPa) to a two-cylinder horizontal compound-expansion steam engine driving a single 13-foot-1-inch (3.99 m) screw. This arrangement produced 1,020 indicated horsepower (760 kW) and a top speed of 11 knots (20 km/h). [1]
Ships of the class were armed with two 7-inch (90 cwt) muzzle-loading rifled guns on pivoting mounts, and four 64-pounder muzzle-loading rifled guns (two on pivoting mounts, and two broadside). Four machine guns and one light gun completed the weaponry. [1]
All the ships of the class were provided with a barque rig, [1] that is, square-rigged foremast and mainmast, and fore-and-aft sails only on the mizzen mast.
Miranda would have had a normal complement of 140–150 men. [1]
Miranda was ordered from Devonport Dockyard and laid down on 8 July 1878. She was launched on 30 September 1879 and was commissioned on 22 July 1880. [1]
She commenced service on the Australia Station in March 1881, under Captain R. S. Dawson [5] [2] In May 1883, Commander Dyke Acland received command of the ship. [6] [7] The Miranda visited a number of the Ellice Islands (present-day Tuvalu) in 1886. [8] Captain Rooke was in command when Miranda visited a number of the Gilbert Islands in 1886.
She left the Australia Station in 1886 and returned to England. By 1891, because of her slow speed and obsolete armament, she had been relegated to the Medway Reserve. She was surveyed as a potential training ship in 1892, but found unfit. [9]
She was sold to Reed of Portsmouth for breaking up on 24 September 1892. [1]
HMS Kingfisher was a Doterel-class screw sloop of the Royal Navy. She was built at Sheerness Dockyard and launched on 16 December 1879. She conducted anti-slavery work in the East Indies in the late 1880s before being re-roled as a training cruiser, being renamed HMS Lark on 10 November 1892, and then HMS Cruizer on 18 May 1893. She was sold in 1919.
HMS Pegasus was a Doterel-class screw composite 6-gun sloop launched on 13 June 1878. She was sold for scrap in 1892.
HMSGannet is a Royal Navy Doterel-class screw sloop-of-war launched on 31 August 1878. It became a training ship in the Thames in 1903, and was then loaned as a training ship for boys in the Hamble from 1913. It was restored in 1987 and is now part of the UK's National Historic Fleet.
HMS Niger was originally slated to be built as a Sampson designed sloop; however, she was ordered as a First-Class sloop with screw propulsion on 20 February 1845 to be built at Woolwich Dockyard, along the design developed by Oliver Lang and with a hull like the Basilisk designed paddle sloops. Her armament and engine were to be like the Encounter Design building at Pembroke. A second vessel (Florentia) was ordered on 26 March 1846 but after her keel was laid at Pembroke Dockyard, her construction was suspended on 6 October 1846 then cancelled three years later, on 22 May 1849. Niger She conducted important propulsion trials, finally proving the superiority of screw propulsion and served in West Africa, the Crimea, China, the East Indies and Australia. She took part in the New Zealand wars in 1860 and was sold for breaking in 1869.
HMS Cordelia was an 11-gun Racer-class sloop of the Royal Navy launched in 1856 and sold in 1870.
HMS Brisk was a 14-gun wooden-hulled screw sloop designed by the Committee of Reference as part of the 1847 program. She is considered an enlarged Rattler with the design approved in 1847. She was ordered on 25 April 1847 from Woolwich Dockyard as a 10-gun sloop, but the guns were later increased due to the Russian War, to 14 guns by increasing the number of 32-pounder guns. She was launched on 2 June 1851 from Woolwich Dockyard. She served in the Russian War of 1854- 55 and as part of the Southern African anti-slavery patrol, with a final commission on the Australian Station. She was sold in 1870 for use in a pioneer, but unsuccessful, telegraph service.
The Doterel class was a Royal Navy class of screw-driven sloops. They were of composite construction, with wooden hulls over an iron frame. They were a revised version of an 1874 design by the Royal Navy's Chief Constructor, William Henry White, the Osprey-class sloop. Two of the class were lost, one to an explosion off Chile and one wrecked off Canada. Gannet is preserved at Chatham Historic Dockyard.
HMS Penguin was an Osprey-class sloop. Launched in 1876, Penguin was operated by the Royal Navy from 1877 to 1881, then from 1886 to 1889. After being converted to a survey vessel, Penguin was recommissioned in 1890, and operated until 1908, when she was demasted and transferred to the Australian Commonwealth Naval Forces for use as a depot and training ship in Sydney Harbour. After this force became the Royal Australian Navy, the sloop was commissioned as HMAS Penguin in 1913. Penguin remained in naval service until 1924, when she was sold off and converted into a floating crane. The vessel survived until 1960, when she was broken up and burnt.
HMS Royalist was a Satellite-class composite screw sloop of the Royal Navy, built in 1883 and hulked as a depot ship in 1900. She was renamed Colleen in 1913, transferred to the Irish Free State in 1923 and broken up in 1950.
HMS Rapid was a Satellite-class composite screw sloop of the Royal Navy, built at Devonport Dockyard and launched on 21 March 1883. She was later reclassified as a corvette.
HMS Basilisk was a first-class paddle sloop of the Royal Navy, built at the Woolwich Dockyard and launched on 22 August 1848.
HMS Espiegle was a Doterel-class sloop of the Royal Navy, built at the Devonport Dockyard and launched on 3 August 1880.
HMS Emerald was an Emerald-class corvette, of the Royal Navy, built at the Pembroke Dockyard and launched on 18 August 1876.
HMS Nymphe was an Amazon-class sloop, of the Royal Navy, built at the Deptford Dockyard and launched on 24 November 1866. She served in the East Indies and Australia, and was sold in 1884.
The Greyhound class was a development of the Cruizer-class sloop, and comprised two 17-gun wooden screw sloops. They were both launched in 1859 and saw service with the Royal Navy until 1870. The class was reclassified as corvettes in 1862.
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.
HMS Phoenix was a Royal Navy Phoenix-class steel screw sloop, launched at Devonport in 1895. She saw action in China during the Boxer Rebellion, and later served on the Pacific Station. She had the misfortune to be alongside a coaling pier in Hong Kong on 18 September 1906 when a typhoon struck the colony. She foundered and became a total loss.
HMS Phoenix was a Doterel-class sloop launched in 1879. She was wrecked off Prince Edward Island, Canada on 12 September 1882.
HMS Mutine was a Doterel-class sloop of the Royal Navy, built at the Devonport Dockyard and launched on 20 July 1880. She became a boom defence vessel at Southampton in 1899 and was renamed Azov in 1904. She was sold after World War I.
HMS Dragon was a Doterel-class sloop of the Royal Navy, built at Devonport Dockyard and launched on 30 May 1878. She served in the East Indies, including the Anglo-Egyptian War of 1882, and the suppression of slavery. She was sold for breaking in 1892.
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