HMS Unicorn (1824)
|
|
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Type | Frigate (sailing ship) |
| Shipyard |
Royal Dockyard, Chatham |
| Keel laying | February 1822 |
| Launch | March 30, 1824 |
| 1. Period of service |
|
| Commissioning | Never put into service |
| Whereabouts | Museum ship in Victoria Dock , Dundee |
| Technical specifications | |
| length | |
| width |
39 ft 11 in (12.18 m) |
| Draft |
17 ft 5 in forward |
| speed |
12 kn |
| Armament |
28 × 18 pounder cannons |
HMS Unicorn from 1824 was originally intended for the Royal Navy and is one of the few remaining frigates from the age of the sailing warships. She is one of the frigates of the successful and numerous British Leda class, which also include HMS Shannon and HMS Trincomalee . The class was built along the lines of the French Hebé , which fell into British hands as a prize in 1782 .
description
The Unicorn is 150 British feet long, 40 wide and was classified as a 46-gun frigate. As armament, 28 18-pounder cannons were provided on the battery deck, 16 32-pounder carronades and 4 9-pounder cannons on the forecastle and aft deck (a total of 48, two guns more than according to the nominal classification).
Compared to the older half-sister Trincomalee from 1817, the Unicorn has some interesting features of the last generation of sailing warships.
The design includes all of the innovations introduced by Sir Robert Seppings , the Royal Navy Surveyor .
The round stern is particularly noticeable. In addition to greater robustness, it offered the additional advantage that the cannons located aft could also be aligned at an angle of 45 ° to the keel line. With the straight transom of the old design, the aiming area after guns firing aft was severely limited, so there were blind spots.
The newer version differs from the older ships of the class by the largely missing deck jump and the short, relatively high galion (ship's beak). The frame work is constructed according to Sepping's diagonal brace system, which made it possible to use shorter, cheaper woods and gave the hull greater strength. A total of 25 Leda-class ships with a round stern were built by 1832.
history
.jpg)
The keel of the Unicorn was laid at the royal shipyard Chatham Dockyard in Chatham in February 1822 , and the ship was launched on March 30, 1824. The ship then received a protective roof and was placed "in ordinary" (= reserve).
1857 to 1862, at that time the Unicorn was already obsolete as a warship, she was subordinated to the British War Office and acted as a powder - Hulk in Woolwich and was then re- launched in Sheerness .
In 1873 she was moved to Dundee as a training ship for the Royal Naval Reserve .
In 1906 it was taken over by the then newly created Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, which became part of the Royal Naval Reserve after the Second World War . During both world wars she played an important role as the headquarters of the Dundee Senior Naval Officer.
In 1939 the frigate was renamed Unicorn II because a then new British aircraft carrier had previously also been named Unicorn and they did not want to have two ships with the same name in one fleet.
In 1941 the ship was renamed HMS Cressy after confusion of names still arose. In 1959, after the aircraft carrier had been decommissioned, it was renamed Unicorn again. In 1961 the Earl Gray Dock in Dundee, in which the Unicorn was located, was to give way to a bridge. The ship was in danger of being scrapped. In order to preserve the ship permanently, the Unicorn Preservation Society was founded, which took over the ship from the Navy in 1968. The Queen Mother, who later became the ship's patroness, visited the Unicorn in 1970; currently the Princess Royal is the patroness.
The Unicorn did not experience any active service as a sailing ship and was never rigged, which spared the ship's material. This fact and the characteristic roof, which has protected the laid-up ship since it was launched, make the Unicorn one of the least modified and most completely preserved wooden ships in their original substance.
The Unicorn is currently moored in Victoria Dock in Dundee.
Remarks
- ↑ The ship was never equipped; Assumption for equipment for overseas service: approx. 17 ft 5 in the front, approx. 18 ft 9 in the aft (data for HMS Diamond , 1824)
- ↑ The ship has never sailed; for the Leda class approx. 12 knots are assumed
- ↑ The ship was never armed; Information as intended for the class
literature
- Robert Gardiner: Frigates of the Napoleonic Wars . Chatham Publishing, 2006. (Contains information on the history of the Leda class, Seppings' innovations and some brief references to the later Leda class, to which the Unicorn belonged.)
- Frank Howard: Sailing Warships 1400-1860 . Bernard & Graefe, 2nd edition 1989, pp. 176, 232 and 234. (Contains a modern painting and a photo of the Unicorn ; also illus. And explanations of Seppings' diagonal strut system.)
Web links
Coordinates: 56 ° 27 ′ 41.6 ″ N , 2 ° 57 ′ 30.6 ″ W.