HMS A7

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Career Royal Navy Ensign
Builder: Vickers Barrow-in-Furness
Laid down: February 19, 1903
Launched:
Commissioned: January 16, 1905
Status: Sunk in Whitsand Bay on January 16, 1914
General Characteristics
Displacement: 190 tons surfaced, 207 tons submerged
Length: 105.25 feet (32 m)
Beam: 12.75 feet (3.9 m)
Draught: 10.5 feet (3.2 m)
Propulsion: 550 hp petrol engine 150 hp electric engine
Speed: 11 knots maximum surfaced

8 knots maximum submerged

Range: 325 miles at 11 knots surfaced 20 miles at 6 knots submerged
Complement: 11 (2 officers and 9 ratings)
Armament: Two 18 inch (457 mm) torpedo tubes, plus two reloads

HMS A7 was an early Royal Navy submarine.

She was a member of Group Two of the first British A-class of submarines (a second, much different A-class submarine appeared towards the end of the Second World War). Like all members of her class, she was built at Vickers Barrow-in-Furness.

She sank in Whitsand Bay, Cornwall on January 16, 1914 with the loss of her crew whilst carrying out dummy torpedo attacks on HMS Onyx (her tender) and HMS Pygmy. An oil slick was seen and the location marked. Several attempts were made to salvage her over the next month by attaching hausers to the eye-ring on the bow but her stern was too deeply embedded in the mud and the hausers parted without pulling her out. She lies today where she sunk, in about 40 metres of water. In 2001 she was declared as one of sixteen wrecks in UK waters designated as "Controlled Sites" under the Protection of Military Remains Act by the British Government and which cannot be dived without special permission.


British A-class submarine

A1 | A2 | A3 | A4 | A5 | A6 | A7 | A8 | A9 | A10 | A11 | A12 | A13


List of submarines of the Royal Navy

List of submarine classes of the Royal Navy