HMS Eurydice

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Career
HMS Eurydice sinking off the Isle of Wight, Illustrated London News.
Ordered:	1841 ?
Laid down:	April 1842
Launched:	16 May 1843
Status:	Broken up 1878-79
General Characteristics
Displacement:	911 Builders' Measurement
Length:	119 ft 9 3/4 in keel 141 ft 2 in overall
Beam:	38 ft 10 in
Draught:	8 ft 9 in
Speed:	Unknown
Complement:	around 190 as a commissioned warship
Armament:	Forecastle: 2 × long 32 pounder (15 kg) Quarter deck: 6 x short 32 pounder (15 kg) Upper gundeck: 18 × 32 pounders (15 kg)

1 Origins of the Eurydice
2 Loss of the Eurydice
3 Prelude to a Second Disaster
4 The Eurydice in folklore
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Origins of the Eurydice

There were two Royal Navy warships named Eurydice in the late 18th and 19th centuries. The first was a 24-gun frigate launched in 1781 and broken up in 1834. This article concerns the second Eurydice which was the victim of one of Britain's worst peace-time naval disasters when she sank in 1878.

Designed by Admiral the Hon. G. Elliot, the second Eurydice was a very fast 24-26 gun frigate designed with a very low draft to operate in shallow waters. After spending about 18 years on active service, in 1861 the Eurydice was converted into a stationary training ship. In 1877 she was refitted for seagoing service as a training ship.

[edit] Loss of the Eurydice

After being recommissioned under the command of Captain Hare, the Eurydice sailed from Portsmouth on a three month tour of the West Indies and Bermuda on November 13th 1877. On the 6th March 1878 she began her return voyage from Bermuda for Portsmouth. After a very fast passage across the Atlantic, on 24 March 1878 the Eurydice was caught in a heavy snow storm off the Isle of Wight, capsized and sank. Only two of the ship's 378 crew and trainees survived, most of those not carried down with the ship dying of exposure in the freezing waters. The wreck was refloated later in the year but had been so badly damaged during her period submerged that she was then broken up.

[edit] Prelude to a Second Disaster

An inquiry found that the vessel had sunk through stress of weather and that her officers and crew were blameless for her loss. There was some adverse comment on the suitability of the Eurydice as a training ship because of her extreme design, which was known to lack stability. However, she was immediately replaced by another 26-gun frigate of identical tonnage but slightly less radical hull-lines, HMS Juno. She was renamed HMS Atalanta and made two successful voyages between England and the West Indies before disappearing at sea in 1880 with the loss of 281 lives. Later Royal Navy seagoing training ships were smaller purpose-built brigs.