HMS Rattler (1843)

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HMS Rattler was a 11-gun sloop of the Royal Navy and the first British warship to adopt a screw propellor powered by a steam engine. She was arguably the first such warship in the world - the sloop USS Princeton was launched after the Rattler, but was placed in commission much sooner.

She was launched on 12 April 1843 at Sheerness Dockyard and spent two years on trials. She was commissioned at Woolwich on 12 December 1844 and was first commanded by Commander Henry Smith. In 1846 she served as part of the Squadron of Evolution. On her first cruise she visited Lisbon and South America, returning to be payed off in September 1847. She later served in Africa and the East Indies, taking part in the Second Burma War. She was broken up in autumn 1856.

Rattler was well-known for her role in the demonstration of the superiority of the screw propellor over the paddle wheel. The most famous trial took place with the paddle-steamer HMS Alecto, Rattler winning a series of races with the other ship and then winning a tug-of-war. It is this which is memorialised to this day in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard [1]. However, a wide range of other comparative trials took place in 1844 to 1846, comparing Rattler with other steamers and experimenting with the most effective type of screw.