HMS Rattler (1843)
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| Career (UK) |  |
|---|---|
| Name: | HMS Rattler |
| Builder: | Sheerness Dockyard |
| Launched: | April 12, 1843 |
| Commissioned: | December 12, 1844, Woolwich |
| Fate: | broken up, 1856 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Sloop |
| Displacement: | 1,112 long tons (1,130 MT) |
| Length: | 185 ft (56 m) |
| Beam: | 32 ft 8.5 in (9.97 m) |
| Draught: | 18 ft 7.5 in (5.68 m) |
| Propulsion: | Sail 2 × Maudslay double cylinder steam engines, 100 hp (75 kW) each |
| Speed: | 9.9 knots (18.3 km/h) |
| Complement: | 180 |
| Armament: | 10 × carronades, 2 × pivot guns |
HMS Rattler was a 12-gun wooden 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.
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[edit] History
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.
[edit] Alecto trials
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 in March 1845 with the paddle-steamer HMS Alecto. The Rattler conclusively beat the Alecto in a series of races with the other ship and then won a tug-of-war contest in which the Rattler towed the Alecto backwards at a speed of 2 knots (3.7 km/h). 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.
On May 17 1845 the Rattler and the steamer Monkey towed HMS Erebus and HMS Terror to Orkney, Rattler returning to Woolwich on June 10.
In June 1845 Rattler served with the 1845 Experimental Squadron.
In 1846 Rattler served with the Squadron of Evolution, departing the Squadron in November for Gibralter from where she towed HMS Superb. She also visited Lisbon and South America, returning to be paid off in September 1847.
She later served in Africa and the East Indies, taking part in the Second Burma War. She was finally broken up in late 1856.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Memorials and Monuments in Portsmouth - HMS Rattler. Memorials and Monuments in Portsmouth. Retrieved on 2008-03-02.
[edit] References
- Colledge, J. J. and Warlow, Ben (2006). Ships of the Royal Navy: the complete record of all fighting ships of the Royal Navy, Rev. ed., London: Chatham. ISBN 9781861762818. OCLC 67375475.
[edit] External links
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