HMS Amazon (1865)
HMS Amazon was the lead of her class composite screw sloops operated by the Royal Navy. She was intended to protect British trade against commerce raiders and was equipped with four guns. After she was commissioned in 1866, she underwent trials before sailing to Bermuda in July. While in the English channel, she turned into steamship Osprey. Thirteen were killed in the collision, and both ships were sunk.
Development and design
Background
At the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, the rebelling Confederate States lacked a large navy. The Confederate Navy purchased several British-built ships to serve as blockade runners and privateers. Among these vessels were,, and. These ships impeded Union shipping; Alabama alone was responsible for destroying 65 merchant vessels. Several of these ships were modeled after British warships; Alabama was an enlarged version of and Florida incorporated the design of the Philomel-class gun vessels. While the Royal Navy initially attributed Confederate success to the Union Navy's lack of fast ships, it soon became concerned that similar commerce raiding tactics could target British trade in a future conflict.A new class of "light sloops" was therefore conceived, intended specifically to destroy commerce raiders. Alabama served as the template for the raider the new design needed to surpass. Since Alabama had a theoretical top speed of, the new British design aimed for a minimum speed of. The armament was designed to match any commerce raider's capability and to enable the sloops to destroy an enemy at long range, as well as to bombard enemy land fortifications. Alabama was armed with eight guns, including two heavy cannons on pivoting carriages. The British sloops featured a similar battery: two and two muzzle-loading rifles. The two 7-inch guns were centrally mounted on pivots, giving them a wide arc of fire, while less mobile 64-pounder guns were mounted on each side of the ship.
Characteristics
Amazon was ordered as part of the Royal Navy's 1864 construction program, along with her sister ships Vestal and Niobe. The class was designed by Edward Reed, and featured a length-to-beam ratio of 5 to 1 and a full hull form that only tapered at the extreme fore and aft. Due to timber shortages, she was built entirely of teak. Internal iron beams reinforced the hull structure, and she was among the last all-wooden sloops in the Navy. She had a length of, a beam of, a draft of, and barque rigging with a complement of 150 sailors. Amazon was the lightest of her class with a displacement of. Compared to traditional British sloops, which used a sharp clipper bow to support the bowsprit, the Amazon-class featured a cruiser stern and a ram-shaped bow. The primary purpose of this sharp bow was not to serve as a ram, but to provide additional buoyancy.She carried several boats: a -long pinnace located amidships between the foremast and funnel, a -long steam cutter on the quarterdeck, two cutters behind the main mast, and a jolly boat astern. She was propelled by four boilers that fed steam at to a horizontal single-expansion steam engine, which turned a -wide propeller and produced and a top speed of.