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Class overview | |
---|---|
Name | Hecla |
Builders |
|
Operators | Royal Navy |
In service | 1814 - 1857 |
Planned | 12 |
Completed | 8 |
Cancelled | 4 |
Lost | 2 |
Retired | 6 |
General characteristics | |
Type | Bomb vessel |
Tons burthen | 372 1⁄94 tons bm |
Length |
|
Beam | 28 ft 6 in (8.7 m) |
Depth of hold | 13 ft 10 in (4.22 m) |
Propulsion | Sails |
Sail plan | Full rigged |
Complement | 67 |
Armament |
|
The Hecla class was a class of bomb vessels of the Royal Navy of the early 19th century. They were designed for use as bomb or mortar ships and were very heavily built. Eight ships were launched; all were converted for use as exploration or survey ships. Four ships of the class are known for the role they played in Arctic and Antarctic exploration.
Fury and Hecla sailed with William Edward Parry on his explorations in search of the Northwest Passage, with Fury being lost to ice on the second. Meteor was renamed Beacon and used as a survey ship, while Aetna and Thunder were both used as survey ships. Sulphur was also used as a survey ship, at one time being commanded by Edward Belcher who later commanded an expedition in search of John Franklin (though not in Sulphur). Erebus was one of two ships commanded by James Clark Ross during his exploration of Antarctica and by Franklin on his ill-fated search for the Northwest Passage. The other was the Vesuvius-class bomb vessel Terror. Both ships were lost during this last voyage.
HMS Hecla was a Royal Navy Hecla-class bomb vessel launched in 1815. Like many other bomb vessels, she was named for a volcano, in this case Hekla in southern Iceland. She served at the Bombardment of Algiers in 1816. Subsequently, she took part in three expeditions to the Arctic. She then served as a survey vessel on the coast of West Africa until she was sold in 1831. She became a merchantman and in 1834 a Greenland whaler. She was wrecked in 1840.
HMS Fury was a Hecla-class bomb vessel of the British Royal Navy.
The following ships of the Royal Navy were assigned the name Calypso, after Calypso, a sea nymph in Greek mythology:
The Ramillies-class ships of the line were a class of nine 74-gun third rates, designed for the Royal Navy by Sir Thomas Slade.
The Intrepid-class ships of the line were a class of fifteen 64-gun third rates, designed for the Royal Navy by Sir John Williams. His design, approved on 18 December 1765, was slightly smaller than Sir Thomas Slade's contemporary Worcester-class design of the same year, against which it was evaluated competitively. Following the prototype, four more ships were ordered in 1767–69, and a further ten between 1771 and 1779.
The Caledonia-class ships of the line were a class of nine 120-gun first rates, designed for the Royal Navy by Sir William Rule. A tenth ship was ordered on 29 October 1827 to the same design, but was launched in 1833 as Queen to a fresh design by Sir William Symonds.
The Canopus-class ships of the line were a class of nine 84-gun two-deck second rates of the Royal Navy. Their design was based on an enlarged version of the lines of the captured French ship Franklin, since commissioned in the Royal Navy as HMS Canopus, although this ship herself was not included as a member of the class. The earlier ships were initially ordered as 80-gun third rates, but this classification was altered by changes in the rating system in February 1817. This class of ships is sometimes referred to as the Formidable class.
The Vanguard-class ships of the line were a class of two-deck 80-gun second rates, designed for the Royal Navy by Sir William Symonds, of which nine were completed as sailing ships of the line, although another two of these were completed as steam warships.
The Cherokee class was a class of brig-sloops of the Royal Navy, mounting ten guns. Brig-sloops were sloops-of-war with two masts rather than the three masts of ship sloops. Orders for 115 vessels were placed, including five which were cancelled and six for which the orders were replaced by ones for equivalent steam-powered paddle vessels.
The Lively class were a successful class of sixteen British Royal Navy 38-gun sailing frigates.
The Pallas class constituted the standard design of 40-gun frigates of the French Navy during the Napoleonic Empire period. Jacques-Noël Sané designed them in 1805, as a development of his seven-ship Hortense class of 1802, and over the next eight years the Napoléonic government ordered in total 62 frigates to be built to this new design. Of these some 54 were completed, although ten of them were begun for the French Navy in shipyards within the French-occupied Netherlands or Italy, which were then under French occupation; these latter ships were completed for the Netherlands or Austrian navies after 1813.
The Conway class sailing sixth rates were a series of ten Royal Navy post ships built to an 1812 design by Sir William Rule. All ten were ordered on 18 January 1812, and nine of these were launched during 1814, at the end of the Napoleonic War; the last (Tees) was delayed and was launched in 1817.
The Hermes class were a series of four 20-gun ships, launched between 1811 and 1816. Two pairs of ships were produced, to slightly different designs – the first two had 20 guns and were unrated flush-decked ship-sloops, whilst the latter two were converted to 26-gun sixth-rates. The design was based on the ex-French 20-gun corvette Bonne Citoyenne, which the British had captured in 1796.
The Seringapatam-class frigates, were a class of British Royal Navy 46-gun sailing frigates.
The Apollo-class sailing frigates were a series of twenty-seven ships that the British Admiralty commissioned be built to a 1798 design by Sir William Rule. Twenty-five served in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, two being launched too late.
The Scamander class sailing frigates were a series of ten 36-gun ships, all built by contract with private shipbuilders to an 1812 design by Sir William Rule, which served in the Royal Navy during the late Napoleonic War and War of 1812.
The Atholl-class corvettes were a series of fourteen Royal Navy sailing sixth-rate post ships built to an 1817 design by the Surveyors of the Navy. A further four ships ordered to this design were cancelled.
HMS Meteor was a Hecla-class bomb vessel built for the Royal Navy during the 1820s. In July 1832 she was renamed Beacon and reclassified as a survey ship, and was sold in 1846.