Amazon class sloop


HMS Dryad at anchor, with sails airing
Class overview
Name: Amazon-class sloops
Builders: Pembroke Dockyard
Devonport Dockyard
Operators:  Royal Navy
Built: 1865–1866
In commission: 1865–1885
Completed: 6
Lost: 2
General characteristics
Type: Screw sloop
Displacement: 1574 tons
Length: 187 ft (57 m)
Beam: 36 ft (11 m)
Draught: 17 ft (5.2 m)[1]
Installed power: 300 horsepower[1]
Propulsion:
  • Two-cylinder horizontal single-expansion steam engine
  • Single screw
Sail plan: Barque
Complement: 150[1]
Armament:

As built:

As converted (Dryad, Nymphe & Vestal):

  • Nine 64-pounder muzzle loading rifled guns[2]

The Amazon class was a class of six screw sloops of wooden construction built for the Royal Navy between 1865 and 1866.

Contents

Construction

Design

Designed by Edward Reed[2], the Royal Navy Director of Naval Construction, they were equipped with a ram bow.[2] The hull was of wooden construction, but they were the first class of sloops to incorporate a form of composite construction; they had iron cross beams while retaining wooden framing.[2]

Propulsion

Propulsion was provided by a two-cylinder horizontal single-expansion steam engine by Ravenhill, Salkeld & Company driving a single 15 ft (4.6 m) screw. Vestal and Nymphe were fitted with three-cylinder Maudslay engines.[2]

Sail plan

All the ships of the class were built with a barque rig.[2]

Armament

The class was designed with two 7-inch (6½-ton) muzzle loading rifled guns mounted on slides on centre-line pivots, and two 64-pounder muzzle loading rifled guns on broadside trucks. Dryad, Nymphe and Vestal were rearmed in the early 1870s with an armament of nine 64-pounder muzzle loading rifled guns, four each side and a centre-line pivot mount at the bow.[2]

Ships

Name Ship Builder Launched Fate
Amazon Pembroke Dockyard 1865 Sunk in collision with SS Osprey, off Start Point, English Channel 10 July 1866[1]
Vestal Pembroke Dockyard 1865 Sold to Castle for breaking in December 1884[2]
Niobe Devonport Dockyard 1866 Wrecked off Cape Blanc on Miquelon Island, off the Atlantic Coast of Newfoundland and Labrador 21 May 1874[1]
Dryad Devonport Dockyard 1866 Sold in September 1885 and broken up in April 1886[2]
Daphne Pembroke Dockyard 1866 Sold for breaking on 7 November 1882[2]
Nymphe Devonport Dockyard 1866 Sold for breaking in December 1884[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Cruisers at Battleships-Cruisers website". http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/cruisers.htm. Retrieved 2008-09-17. 
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Winfield, Rif; Lyon, David (2004). The Sail and Steam Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815–1889. Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-032-6. OCLC 52620555. 
Amazon-class sloop
Amazon · Vestal · Niobe · Dryad · Daphne · Nymphe