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

HMS Dryad at anchor, with sails airing
Class overview
NameAmazon-class sloops
Builders
  • Pembroke Dockyard
  • Devonport Dockyard
Operators Royal Navy
Built1865–1866
In commission1865–1885
Completed6
Lost2
General characteristics
TypeScrew sloop
Displacement1574 tons
Length187 ft (57 m)
Beam36 ft (11 m)
Draught17 ft (5.2 m)[1]
Installed power300 horsepower[1]
Propulsion
  • Single screw
  • Two-cylinder horizontal single-expansion steam engine
Sail planBarque
Complement150[1]
Armament

Construction

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Design

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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

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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

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

Armament

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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

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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]

Notes

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  1. ^ a b c d e "Cruisers at Battleships-Cruisers website". Retrieved 17 September 2008.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Winfield, R.; Lyon, D. (2004). The Sail and Steam Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815–1889. London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-032-6. OCLC 52620555.

Bibliography

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