NZS Amokura

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Career (Britain)	Royal Navy
Name:	HMS Sparrow
Commissioned:	1890
Decommissioned:	1904
Career (NZ)
Name:	NZS Amokura
In service:	1906
Out of service:	1920
General characteristics
Displacement:	805 tons
Length:	165 ft (50 m)
Beam:	31 ft (9.4 m)
Draught:	11.6 ft (3.5 m) min, 13.9 ft (4.2 m) max
Propulsion:	single 720 hp (normal draught) and 1,200 hp (forced) coal fired horizontal steam engine driving a two bladed propeller.
Speed:	13 knots
Complement:	76
Armament:	six 4-inch breech loading guns, two Hotchkiss 3 pounders and two Nordenfelt machine guns

NZS Amokura was first commissioned in 1890 as the 805 ton Royal Navy gun boat HMS Sparrow. And as such she fought in the Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896.^[1]

In 1907 the then New Zealand Marine Department acquired her and converted her to New Zealand's first training ship NZS Amokura. Over the next 14 years 527 boys trained in her, 25 of them going on to naval service and most of the others into the merchant marine.

She was originally a three masted auxiliary barquentine, square rigged on the foremast, fore-and-aft on the after masts. Her hull was composite; carvel teak planking on steel frames.

[edit] References

• McDougall, R J (1989) New Zealand Naval Vessels, Page 170. Government Printing Office. ISBN 9780477013994
• Gaby, James (1974) Mates in Sail. Antipodean Publishers. ISBN 9780869440087 Excerpt
• McLintock, A H (editor) Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand,Amokura Updated 18-Sep-2007
• NZ Maritime record: NZS Amokura 1906–1955
• Stevens,David and Reeve, John (2001) Southern Trident. Allen & Unwin. ISBN 186508462X
• Waters, Sydney David (1956) The Royal New Zealand Navy, Appendix IX: New Zealand Training Ship Amokura Historical Publications Branch, Wellington.

[edit] External links

• Patience, Kevin The Witu Expiditions – 1890 and 1893

External images
	HMS Sparrow