Mosquito in 1901 |
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| Career (Queensland and Australia) | |
|---|---|
| Builder: | Thornycroft of Chiswick |
| Launched: | 16 July 1884 |
| In service: | 1885? |
| Out of service: | 1910 |
| Homeport: | Brisbane, Queensland |
| Fate: | Scrapped |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 12 tons |
| Length: | 63 ft (19 m) |
| Beam: | 7 ft 6 in (2.29 m) |
| Speed: | 17 knots |
| Complement: | 7 |
| Armament: | 2 sets of dropping gear for 14 inch torpedoes. |
HMQS Mosquito was a torpedo boat operated by the Queensland Maritime Defence Force and the Commonwealth Naval Forces. She first entered service in the second half of the 1880s and was paid off in 1910.
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Following the Jervois-Scratchley reports the colonial governments of Australia restructured their defence forces. One of the many outcomes of this report was the formation of the Queensland Maritime Defence Force. To equip the new force the colonial government initially purchased two gunboats and a torpedo boat.
HMQS Mosquito launched on 16 July 1884 and completed in 1885. With a hull of gavanised steel construction, she was designed for a speed of 21 knots, however was only able to achieve 17.21 knots during trials. Mosquito was then shipped out to Australia as deck cargo. Mosquito operated from the facilities at the bottom of the cliffs on the western side of Kangaroo Point on the Brisbane River. She was never commissioned but simply placed into service when required and therefore spent much of her time out of the water.
Transferred to the Commonwealth Naval Forces at Federation, Mosquito was employed as a training vessel until she was paid off in 1910. Subsequently her fittings and engines were removed before being abandoned somewhere on the Brisbane River.
This vessel appears to have been a standard design from the builder who in this case was Thornycroft of Chiswick. TB 1 of Tasmania and the New Zealand Defender-class torpedo boats were identical.[1] HMV Ships Lonsdale and Nepean of Victoria, built in 1883-1884, were also identical, except in mounting fixed torpedo tubes.[1]
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