HMS Blonde (1910)


HMS Blonde
Career
Class and type: Blonde class light cruiser
Name: HMS Blonde
Builder: Pembroke Dockyard
Laid down: 6 December 1909
Launched: 22 July 1910
Commissioned: May 1911
Fate: Sold 6 May 1920
General characteristics
Displacement: 3,350 long tons (3,400 t) (normal); 3,850 long tons (3,910 t) (deep load)
Length: 385 ft (117 m) (p/p); 405 ft (123 m) (o/a)
Beam: 41 ft 6 in (12.65 m)
Draught: 15 ft 6 in (4.72 m)
Installed power: 18,000 shp (13,000 kW)
Propulsion: 4 × Parsons turbines,
12 × Yarrow boilers,
4 × shafts
Speed: 24 to 25 kn (28 to 29 mph; 44 to 46 km/h)
Capacity: Coal: 450 tons (nornmal), 780 tons (maximum); Fuel Oil: 190 tons
Complement: 314 officers and men
Armament:

8 × BL 4 in (100 mm)/50 cal Mk VII guns (8x1)
1 × 4 in (100 mm) AA gun
4 × 3-pounders (47 mm (1.9 in))
1 × 0.303 in (7.7 mm) machine gun

2 × 18 in (460 mm) torpedo tubes
Armour:

HMS Blonde was a Blonde class light cruiser of the Royal Navy. She was laid down in December 1909 in Pembroke Dockyard, launched on 22 July 1910 and completed in May 1911.

Like her sister ship, Blanche, she was a development of the earlier Boadicea-class, designed to operate with destroyer flotillas.

Blonde spent 1911-1912 in the Mediterranean as Senior Officer’s ship of the Seventh Flotilla, but by 1912 she was already at least 2.5 kn (2.9 mph; 4.6 km/h) slower than the majority of destroyers.

During the First World War, she served with the Grand Fleet, and was attached to a variety of Battle Squadrons, beginning with the Fourth Battle Squadron. She was no longer with that squadron by the summer of 1916, and missed the Battle of Jutland. In September 1917, she was she was converted to lay mines but was never used in active service in this role. Surplus to requirements after the end of hostilities, she was sold for scrap on 6 May 1920 to T. C. Pas, and was broken up in the Netherlands.

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