Eclipse-class sloop

HMS Sirius
Class overview
Name: Eclipse-class sloops
(corvettes from 1876)
Builders: Devonport Dockyard
Portsmouth Dockyard
Chatham Dockyard
Sheerness Dockyard
Deptford Dockyard
Operators:  Royal Navy
Preceded by: Amazon class
Succeeded by: Fantome class
Built: 1867–1870
In service: 1867–1921
Completed: 7
Scrapped: 7
General characteristics (as built)
Type:Wooden screw sloop (later corvette)
Displacement:1,760 long tons (1,790 t)
Tons burthen:1,268 bm
Length:212 ft (64.6 m) (p/p)
Beam:36 ft (11.0 m)
Draught:16 ft 6 in (5.0 m)
Depth:21 ft 6 in (6.6 m)
Installed power:1,946–2,518 ihp (1,451–1,878 kW)
Propulsion:1 shaft
1 × 2-cylinder horizontal steam engine
4 or 6 × boilers
Sail plan:Barque or Ship rig
Speed:12–13 knots (22–24 km/h; 14–15 mph)
Complement:180
Armament:2 × 7-inch rifled muzzle-loading guns
4 × 6.3-inch 64-pounder rifled muzzle-loading guns
For the 1894 class of protected cruiser see: Eclipse-class cruiser

The Eclipse class was a class of seven 6-gun wooden screw sloops built for the Royal Navy between 1867 and 1870. They were re-armed and re-classified as 12-gun corvettes in 1876. Two further vessels were proposed but never ordered.

Design

A development of the Amazon class, they were designed by Edward Reed, the Royal Navy's Director of Naval Construction. The hull was of wooden construction, but with iron cross-beams, and a ram bow was fitted.[1]

Propulsion

Propulsion was provided by a two-cylinder horizontal steam engine driving a single screw. Spartan, Sirius and Tenedos had compound steam engines, and the remainder of the class had single-expansion steam engines.

Sail plan

All the ships of the class were built with a ship rig, but this was replaced with a barque rig.

Armament

The Eclipse class was designed with two 7-inch (6½-ton) muzzle-loading rifled guns mounted in traversing slides and four 64-pounder muzzle-loading rifled guns.[1] They were re-classified as corvettes in 1876, carrying a homogenous armament of twelve 64-pounder muzzle-loading rifled guns.

Ships

NameShip BuilderLaunchedFate
DanaePortsmouth Dockyard21 May 1867Lent to the War Department as a hulk in 1886 and sold on 15 May 1906[1]
BlancheChatham Dockyard17 August 1867Sold to Castle for breaking in September 1886
EclipseSheerness Dockyard14 November 1867Lent to the War Department as a hulk for storage of mines from 1888 to 1892. Sold in 1921[1]
SiriusPortsmouth Dockyard24 April 1868Sold to Castle for breaking at Charlton in 1885[1]
SpartanDeptford Dockyard14 November 1868Sold to Castle for breaking on 7 November 1882[1]
DidoPortsmouth Dockyard23 October 1869Hulked in 1886. Renamed Actaeon II in 1906. Sold to J B Garnham for breaking on 17 July 1922[1]
TenedosDevonport Dockyard13 May 1870Sold to G Pethwick of Plymouth for breaking in November 1887[1]
Proserpine--Authorised on 18 December 1866 but never ordered[1]
Diomede--Authorised on 18 December 1866 but rescinded on 30 April 1867[1]

Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 Winfield, pp. 290–91

Bibliography

External links

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