HNoMS Sleipner (1877)


HNoMS Sleipner was a 1. class gunboat built for the Royal Norwegian Navy. Like all other Norwegian gunships of her era, she carried a heavy armament on a diminutive hull. The vessel was built at the Naval Yard at Horten, and had yard number 56.

Fitout

Sleipner's main weapon was a 26 cm cannon, of the same make and model other navies mounted on battleships. Sleipner also carried an underwater torpedo tube in her bow for firing Whitehead torpedoes, and she was the first vessel in the Royal Norwegian Navy equipped with this weapon.

Rebuild

In 1900 Sleipner was rebuilt, and her masts and rigging removed. After her rebuild she was used as a cadet ship until 1915, when she started a new life as a floating barracks. Between 1921 and 1932 Sleipner was used as a floating depot for the fledgling Royal Norwegian Navy Air Service, before she was finally decommissioned and scrapped in 1935.

Notable crew