HNoMS Sleipner (1877)

Sleipner after the rebuild in 1900
Career
Name:	Sleipner
Namesake:	Sleipnir – the eight-legged steed of Odin
Builder:	Navy Yard, Karljohansvern
Yard number:	56
Laid down:	1 January 1877
Launched:	7 August 1877
Christened:	20 May 1878
Decommissioned:	1935
Out of service:	1 January 1919
Fate:	Scrapped in 1935
General characteristics
Class & type:	.1 class gunboat
Displacement:	720 long tons (732 t)
Length:	53.26 m (174 ft 9 in)
Draught:	3.35 m (11 ft 0 in)
Propulsion:	650 hp (485 kW) Reciprocating steam engines and sails
Speed:	12.7 knots (14.6 mph; 23.5 km/h) under power 13.4 knots (15.4 mph; 24.8 km/h) under power with sails
Complement:	90
Armament:	• 1 × 26 cm (10 in)/22 breech-loading gun • 1 × 15 cm (5.9 in)/25 breech-loading gun • 1 × underwater torpedo tube

HNoMS Sleipner was a 1. class gunboat built for the Royal Norwegian Navy. Like all other Norwegian gunships of her era, she carried a heavy armament on a diminutive hull. The vessel was built at the Naval Yard at Horten, and had yard number 56.

Fitout

Sleipner's main weapon was a 26 cm (10-inch) cannon, of the same make and model other navies mounted^[1] on battleships. Sleipner also carried an underwater torpedo tube in her bow for firing Whitehead torpedoes, and she was the first vessel in the Royal Norwegian Navy equipped with this weapon.

Rebuild

In 1900 Sleipner was rebuilt, and her masts and rigging removed. After her rebuild she was used as a cadet ship (training vessel) until 1915, when she started a new life as a floating barracks. Between 1921 and 1932 Sleipner was used as a floating depot for the fledgling Royal Norwegian Navy Air Service, before she was finally decommissioned and scrapped in 1935.

Notable crew

• Elias Aslaksen, served as an officer cadet on board Sleipner in 1908.

Gallery

• 

  Sleipner at the opening ceremony of the Kiel Canal in 1895

• 

  The crew and cadets aboard Sleipner photographed in 1904

References

• Naval history via Flix: KNM Sleiner, retrieved 2 March 2006