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Amazon-class sloop

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HMS Dryad at anchor, with sails airing
Class overview
NameAmazon-class sloops
Builderslist error: <br /> list (help)
Pembroke Dockyard
Devonport Dockyard
Operators Royal Navy
Built1865–1866
In commission1865–1885
Completed6
Lost2
General characteristics
TypeScrew sloop
Displacement1574 tons
Length187 ft (57 m)
Beam36 ft (11 m)
Draught17 ft (5.2 m)[1]
Installed power300 horsepower[1]
Propulsion
  • Two-cylinder horizontal single-expansion steam engine
  • Single screw
Sail planBarque
Complement150[1]
Armamentlist error: mixed text and list (help)
As built:

As converted (Dryad, Nymphe & Vestal):

  • Nine 64-pounder muzzle loading rifled guns[2]

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

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

Name Ship Builder Launched Fate
Amazon Pembroke Dockyard 1865 Sunk in collision with SS Osprey, off Start Point, English Channel 10 July 1866[1]
Vestal Pembroke Dockyard 1865 Sold to Castle for breaking in December 1884[2]
Niobe Devonport Dockyard 1866 Wrecked off Cape Blanc on Miquelon Island, off the Atlantic Coast of Newfoundland and Labrador 21 May 1874[1]
Dryad Devonport Dockyard 1866 Sold in September 1885 and broken up in April 1886[2]
Daphne Pembroke Dockyard 1866 Sold for breaking on 7 November 1882[2]
Nymphe Devonport Dockyard 1866 Sold for breaking in December 1884[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Cruisers at Battleships-Cruisers website". Retrieved 2008-09-17.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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.