HMS Prince of Wales (1860)

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Ship data
Surname: HMS Britannia

through March 3, 1869: HMS Prince of Wales

Keel laying : June 10, 1848

Changed to steam drive on October 27, 1856

Launching ( ship christening ): January 25, 1860
Builder: Portsmouth Dockyard
Technical specifications
Type: Ship of the line
Length over all: 64 m
Main battery deck length: 85.1 m
Width: 52 feet, 1/2 inch (16 m)
Drive: Sails and steam propeller drive
Displacement : 3186 t (planned)

3966 t (with steam)

3994t (built)

Armor system: without

HMS Prince of Wales was one of six 121-gun propeller-operated first-rate triangular ships of the line in the Royal Navy . It was launched on January 25, 1860. In 1869 it was renamed HMS Britannia and served as a cadet training ship in Dartmouth until 1905 .

history

The Prince of Wales was originally planned by John Edye and Isaac Watts as a modified Queens- class ship with 120 guns and 3,186 t displacement. The keel was laid in Portsmouth on June 10, 1848 , although the official order was not made until June 29 and the design was not approved until July 28, 1848.

In 1849 the Royal Navy ordered the HMS Agamemnon, their first propeller-driven ship. Possibly the construction of the Prince of Wales was suspended, so that the Agamemnon was completed earlier although she was laid down after her. On April 9, 1856, the Prince of Wales was ordered again as a ship with now 121 cannons and propeller drive. The renovation work began on October 27, 1856.

The machinery consisted of an 800 nhp Penn two-cylinder single expansion steam engine. The cylinders had a diameter of 2.1 m and a stroke of 1.22 m.

On January 25, 1860, the ship was launched. On October 31, 1860, tests were made at sea without rigging . An average speed of 12,569 knots (23.293 km / h) was achieved.

The Prince of Wales was completed with unarmored ships at the end of an arms race between Great Britain and France. In 1860 the Royal Navy had more wooden ships of the line than it needed in peacetime. With the Warrior , the Royal Navy's first armored ship of the line entered service in 1861. Unarmored propeller-driven ships were of value until the mid-1860s. Several new steam-powered armored ships of the line entered service in the 1860s.

In 1867 the engines were removed from the Prince of Wales and installed in the newly built iron-armored ship HMS Repulse . In 1869 the ship was renamed Britannia and began its service as a cadet training ship in Dartmouth . There she replaced the ship of the same name HMS Britannia from 1820. As Britannia , she was a Hulk , a ship without a propulsion system and only had a foremast . Among other things, the future Admiral and First Sea Lord Rosslyn Wemyss , Prince Albert Victor and his younger brother, the future King George V , began on the ship . her service in the Royal Navy.

In September 1905 the Royal Navy College was opened in Dartmouth. At the same time, Britannia was closed as a training facility.

A new King Edward VII- class battleship called the Britannia was launched in December 1904. The former Prince of Wales was officially hulked in September 1909 and sold to Garnham on September 23, 1914. In July 1916 the ship was sold to Hughes Bolckow from Blyth for cannibalization.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Lyon, David and Winfield, Rif The Sail and Steam Navy List, All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815-1889 , p. 90
  2. ^ Lambert, Andrew Battleships in Transition, the Creation of the Steam Battlefleet 1815-1860
  3. ^ Lambert, Andrew Battleships in Transition, the Creation of the Steam Battlefleet 1815-1860 pp. 122, 127-128
  4. ↑ Lord Tweedmouth, First Lord's Statement explanatory of Navy Estimates, 1906-7 , February 26, 1906, reproduced in The Naval Annual 1906 , p. 370

literature

  • Andrew Lambert : Battleships in Transition, the Creation of the Steam Battlefleet 1815-1860, published Conway Maritime Press, 1984.  
  • Lyon, David and Winfield, Rif: The Sail and Steam Navy List, All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815–1889, published Chatham, 2004.