HMS Fareham
HMS Fareham was a Hunt-class minesweeper of the Aberdare sub-class built for the Royal Navy during World War I. She was not finished in time to participate in the First World War and survived the Second World War to be sold for scrap in 1948.
Design and description
The Aberdare sub-class were enlarged versions of the original Hunt-class ships with a more powerful armament. The ships displaced at normal load. They had a length between perpendiculars of and measured long overall. The Aberdares had a beam of and a draught of. The ships' complement consisted of 74 officers and ratings.The ships had two vertical triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one shaft, using steam provided by two Yarrow boilers. The engines produced a total of and gave a maximum speed of. They carried a maximum of of coal which gave them a range of at.
The Aberdare sub-class was armed with a quick-firing (QF) gun forward of the bridge and a QF twelve-pounder anti-aircraft gun aft. Some ships were fitted with six- or three-pounder guns in lieu of the twelve-pounder. Ships that served in the Second World War initially had two machine guns installed in the bridge wings. Later the four-inch gun was replaced by another twelve-pounder and the machine guns were replaced by Oerlikon 20 mm cannon. Later still another pair of Oerlikons was mounted in the stern.