Mariner-class gunvessel

Last updated

HMS Racer (1884).jpg
HMS Racer
Class overview
NameMariner-class gunvessels (later reclassified sloops)
Builders
OperatorsNaval Ensign of the United Kingdom.svg  Royal Navy
Cost
  • Hull: £34,834
  • Machinery: £12,787
  • (Reindeer)
Built18831888 [1]
In commission18831929
Completed6
General characteristics
Type Composite screw gunvessel (rated as sloops from 1884)
Displacement970 tons
Length167 ft (51 m) pp
Beam32 ft (9.8 m)
Draught14 ft (4.3 m) [2]
Installed power850  ihp (630 kW)
Propulsion
  • 2-cylinder horizontal compound-expansion steam engine
  • Single screw [2]
Sail plan Barque-rigged, except Icarus (barquentine-rigged)
Speed11+12 knots (21.3 km/h)
RangeApproximately 2,100 nmi (3,900 km) at 10 kn (19 km/h) [2]
Complement126
Armament

The Mariner class was a class of six 8-gun gunvessels (sloops from 1884) built for the Royal Navy between 1883 and 1888. Four were built in the Naval Dockard at Devonport, and two elsewhere; the Acorn was built by contract at Jacobs Pill on the Pembroke River (a private yard founded in the 1870s by Sir Edward Reed), while the Melita was built in the Malta Dockyard, the only substantial ship of the Royal Navy ever to be built in the island.

Contents

Construction

Design

Designed by Nathaniel Barnaby, [2] the Royal Navy Director of Naval Construction, the hull was of composite construction; that is, iron keel, frames, stem and stern posts with wooden planking. The entire class were re-classified in November 1884 as sloops before they entered service.

Propulsion

Propulsion was provided by a 2-cylinder horizontal compound-expansion steam engine of 850 indicated horsepower (634 kW) driving a single screw. This arrangement provided enough power to drive the ships at 11+12 knots (21.3 km/h), although Icarus and Melita recorded 12.5 knots. [2]

Sail plan

All the ships of the class were built as barque-rigged vessels, except Icarus, which had no main yards provided, making her a barquentine.

Armament

The class was designed and built to carry eight 5-inch 38cwt breech-loading guns, [Note 2] one light gun and eight machine guns. [2] Melita had 40cwt guns instead of 38cwt, and Reindeer had two of her guns removed. [2]

Construction

All the ships were laid down in 1882-83. While most of the ships were completed relatively quickly, Melita took six years to build. The intention behind building her at Malta was to make use of the substantial workforce at Malta Dockyard who were otherwise (it was felt) unemployed when the Mediterranean Fleet was away. The experiment cost £10,000 more than the British-built versions, and incurred substantial delay; it was not repeated, and Melita remained the only warship of any significant size ever built in Malta for the Royal Navy. [3]

Ships

NameShip builder [2] Launched [2] Fate [2]
Mariner Devonport Dockyard23 June 1884Boom defence in 1903. Lent to Liverpool Salvage Association as a salvage vessel in 1917. Laid up from 1922 to 1929. Sold to Hughes Bolckow, Blyth on 19 February 1929
Reindeer Devonport Dockyard14 November 1883Boom defence in 1904. Lent to Liverpool Salvage Association as a salvage vessel in 1917, renamed Reindeer I. Sold to Halifax Shipyard Ltd as a salvage ship on 12 July 1924. Abandoned at sea in March 1932
Racer Devonport Dockyard6 August 1884Tender to Britannia at Dartmouth in 1896; tender to Osborne College, Cowes in February 1903. Salvage vessel in June 1917. Sold to Hughes Bolckow, Blyth on 6 November 1928
Icarus Devonport Dockyard27 July 1885Sold on 12 April 1904
Acorn Milford Haven Shipbuilding Co6 September 1884Sold to Harris, Bristol on 15 December 1899. Broken up at Milford Haven in 1904
Melita Malta Dockyard20 March 1888Boom defence in May 1905. Salvage vessel in December 1915, renamed Ringdove. Sold to Falmouth Docks Company on 9 July 1920, renamed Ringdove’s Aid. Sold again in 1926 to Liverpool and Glasgow Salvage Association, renamed Restorer, and finally broken up in 1937

See also

Commons-logo.svg Media related to Mariner class gunvessel at Wikimedia Commons

Notes

  1. Except Melita, which had 40cwt versions, and Reindeer, which had only 6 of the 38cwt version. Icarus had additional QF guns fitted in 1890.
  2. "5-inch" refers to the calibre of the gun; 38cwt is the weight of the gun in hundredweight.

Citations

  1. "Cruisers at battleships-cruisers website" . Retrieved 11 August 2008.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Winfield (2004), p.296
  3. Preston (2007), p.178.

Related Research Articles

HMS <i>Kingfisher</i> (1879) Sloop of the Royal Navy

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.

<i>Osprey</i>-class sloop

The Osprey class was a Royal Navy class of screw-driven sloops built between 1874 and 1877. Nine additional ships were built to a revised design, the Doterel-class sloop. They were the first class of ship in the Royal Navy to use glass scuttles.

HMS <i>Gannet</i> (1878) Sloop of the Royal Navy

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 <i>Cruizer</i> (1852) Sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Cruizer was a 17-gun wooden screw sloop, the name-ship of the Cruizer class of the Royal Navy, launched at the Royal Dockyard, Deptford in 1852. The spelling of her name was formally altered to HMS Cruiser in 1857. She became a sail training vessel in 1872 and was renamed HMS Lark. She was eventually sold for breaking in 1912.

<i>Camelion</i>-class sloop

The Camelion class was a class of screw-driven sloops of wood construction, designed by Isaac Watts and operated by the Royal Navy. Eight ships of the class were built from 1858 to 1866 with another eight cancelled. They were initially rated as second-class sloops, but were later reclassified as corvettes.

<i>Amazon</i>-class sloop

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

HMS <i>Reindeer</i> (1883) Royal Navy Mariner-class composite screw gunvessel of 8 guns

HMS Reindeer was a Royal Navy Mariner-class composite screw gunvessel of 8 guns.

HMS <i>Mariner</i> (1884) Royal Navy Mariner-class composite screw gunvessel of 8 guns

HMS Mariner was the name-ship of the Royal Navy Mariner-class composite screw gunvessel of 8 guns.

HMS <i>Melita</i> (1888) Sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Melita was a Royal Navy Mariner-class composite screw sloop of 8 guns, launched in 1888 and commissioned in 1892. She was the only significant Royal Navy warship ever to be built in Malta Dockyard, She was renamed HMS Ringdove in 1915 as a salvage vessel and in 1920 was sold to the Falmouth Docks Company, which changed her name to Ringdove's Aid. She was sold again in 1926 to the Liverpool & Glasgow Salvage Association, renamed Restorer, and finally broken up in 1937, 54 years after her keel was laid.

<i>Satellite</i>-class sloop

The Satellite class was a class of 12-gun composite sloops built for the Royal Navy between 1883 and 1888, and reclassified as corvettes in 1884.

HMS <i>Harrier</i> (1894) Gunboat of the Royal Navy

The sixth HMS Harrier was a Dryad-class torpedo gunboat. She was launched at Devonport Dockyard on 20 February 1894, and saw service in the Mediterranean and in fishery protection. She served as a minesweeper during World War I and was sold for commercial use in 1920.

HMS <i>Icarus</i> (1885) Sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Icarus was a Mariner-class composite screw gunvessel of 8 guns, and the third Royal Navy vessel to carry the name. She was launched in 1885 at Devonport and sold in 1904.

<i>Racer</i>-class sloop Boat classification

The Racer-class sloop also known as the Cordelia class of swift cruisers was an 11-gun wooden screw sloop class of five ships built for the Royal Navy between 1855 and 1860.

HMS <i>Myrmidon</i> (1867) Gunvessel of the Royal Navy

HMS Myrmidon was a Cormorant-class gunvessel of the Royal Navy, built at Chatham Dockyard and launched in 1867. She served on the North America and West Indies Station and surveyed parts of the Australian coast before being sold at Hong Kong in 1889.

<i>Intrepid</i>-class gunvessel

Intrepid-class gunvessels were a class of six Royal Navy first-class wooden gunvessels built in 1855-56. They were rated as sloops from 1859 to 1862, and were scrapped by 1865. Victor was sold to the Confederate States of America as the raider CSS Rappahannock, but she was interned by the French at Calais and never fulfilled her intended function.

HMS <i>Phoenix</i> (1895) Sloop of the Royal Navy

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 <i>Dragon</i> (1878) British naval vessel

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.

HMS <i>Pelican</i> (1877) Sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Pelican was an Osprey-class sloop built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1870s. She was launched in 1877 and was sold to the Hudson's Bay Company in 1901. She was scuttled in 1953.

<i>Cormorant</i>-class gunvessel

The Cormorant-class gunvessels were a class of 4-gun first-class gunvessels built for the Royal Navy in the 1860s. They were somewhat unsuccessful; intended for shore bombardment in shallow water, they exceeded their design draft by 50%. Seven of the 13 ships ordered were suspended, with 3 finished or converted as survey ships and the other 4 cancelled. Racehorse was wrecked after only 4 years, and those ships that were completed as planned had short operational lives, in some cases less than 10 years. The survey vessels lasted longest, with the last ship of the class, Sylvia, being broken up in 1890.

<i>Archer</i>-class sloop

On 26 March 1846, two vessels were ordered from Deptford Dockyard as Rifleman-designed gunvessels named Archer and Parthian. However, on 9 September 1846 the orders for both vessels were suspended prior to the vessels being laid down. On 25 April 1847 two vessels were ordered to the improved Rattler-type screw sloops as designed by John Edye of the Surveyor's Department from Deptford Dockyard. The first vessel, Archer may have been the change of the build from the Rifleman type to the sloop design. The second vessel, Wasp, appears to be a new vessel as the build for the Parthian remained on the books at Deptford until June 1849, when it was cancelled. Archer received the machinery from the gunvessel Rifleman, which resulted in an increase of speed over Wasp. Wasp's hull was sheathed in Muntz metal to retard marine growth. Their armament would increase from 12 to 15 guns over their careers. Both vessels would participate in the Russian War of 1854–1855. Both would be broken by 1869.

References