French ship Alexandre (1857)
Alexandre was ordered as a third-rank, 90-gun sailing for the French Navy, but was converted to a steam-powered ship in the 1850s while under construction. Completed in 1857 the ship participated in the Second Italian War of Independence two years later. Her engines were removed in 1871 and she began conversion into a transport for exiled prisoners. Alexandre was instead completed as a gunnery training ship in 1872. She was hulked in 1877 and served as a barracks ship until she was scrapped in 1900.
Description
The Suffren-class ships were enlarged versions of the 80-gun ships of the line that had been designed by naval architect Jacques-Noël Sané. The conversion to steam power involved cutting the ship's frame in half amidships and building a new section to house the propulsion machinery and coal bunkers, which reduced her armament to 90 guns. Alexandre had a length at the waterline of, a beam of and a depth of hold of. The ship displaced 5,292 tonnes and had a draught of at deep load. Her crew numbered 913 officers and ratings. Details are lacking on the ship's propulsion machinery, the only information available is that her two steam engines were rated at 900 nominal horsepower and produced.The ship's consisted of eighteen 36-pounder smoothbore cannon and sixteen Paixhans guns on the lower gundeck and thirty-four 30-pounder cannon on the upper gundeck. On the quarterdeck and forecastle were twenty 30-pounder cannon and a pair of rifled muzzle-loading guns.