Eclipse-class sloop

The Eclipse class was a class of seven 6-gun wooden screw sloops built for the Royal Navy between 1867 and 1870. They were re-armed and re-classified as 12-gun corvettes in 1876. Two further vessels were proposed but never ordered.

HMS Sirius
Class overview
Name: Eclipse class
Builders:
  • Devonport Dockyard
  • Portsmouth Dockyard
  • Chatham Dockyard
  • Sheerness Dockyard
  • Deptford Dockyard
Operators:  Royal Navy
Preceded by: Amazon class
Succeeded by: Fantome class
Built: 1867–1870
In service: 1867–1921
Completed: 7
Scrapped: 7
General characteristics (as built)
Type: Wooden screw sloop (later corvette)
Displacement: 1,760 long tons (1,790 t)
Tons burthen: 1,268 bm
Length: 212 ft (64.6 m) (p/p)
Beam: 36 ft (11.0 m)
Draught: 16 ft 6 in (5.0 m)
Depth: 21 ft 6 in (6.6 m)
Installed power: 1,946–2,518 ihp (1,451–1,878 kW)
Propulsion:
Sail plan: Barque or Ship rig
Speed: 12–13 knots (22–24 km/h; 14–15 mph)
Complement: 180
Armament:
For the 1894 class of protected cruiser see: Eclipse-class cruiser

Design

A development of the Amazon class, they were designed by Edward Reed, the Royal Navy's Director of Naval Construction. The hull was of wooden construction, but with iron cross-beams, and a ram bow was fitted.[1]

Propulsion

Propulsion was provided by a two-cylinder horizontal steam engine driving a single screw. Spartan, Sirius and Tenedos had compound steam engines, and the remainder of the class had single-expansion steam engines.

Sail plan

All the ships of the class were built with a ship rig, but this was replaced with a barque rig.

Armament

The Eclipse class was designed with two 7-inch (6½-ton) muzzle-loading rifled guns mounted in traversing slides and four 64-pounder muzzle-loading rifled guns.[1] They were re-classified as corvettes in 1876, carrying a homogenous armament of twelve 64-pounder muzzle-loading rifled guns.

Ships
NameShip BuilderLaunchedFate
DanaePortsmouth Dockyard21 May 1867Lent to the War Department as a hulk in 1886 and sold on 15 May 1906[1]
BlancheChatham Dockyard17 August 1867Sold to Castle for breaking in September 1886
EclipseSheerness Dockyard14 November 1867Lent to the War Department for use as a storage hulk between 1888 and 1892. Anchored in the Hamoaze as a floating magazine and No. 3 (Devonport) Division, Metropolitan Police barracks on census night in 1911. Sold in 1921.[1]
SiriusPortsmouth Dockyard24 April 1868Sold to Castle for breaking at Charlton in 1885[1]
SpartanDeptford Dockyard14 November 1868Sold to Castle for breaking on 7 November 1882[1]
DidoPortsmouth Dockyard23 October 1869Hulked in 1886. Renamed Actaeon II in 1906. Sold to J B Garnham for breaking on 17 July 1922[1]
TenedosDevonport Dockyard13 May 1870Sold to G Pethwick of Plymouth for breaking in November 1887[1]
Proserpine--Authorised on 18 December 1866 but never ordered[1]
Diomede--Authorised on 18 December 1866 but rescinded on 30 April 1867[1]

Notes
  1. Winfield, pp. 290–91

Bibliography
  • Ballard, G. A. (1938). "British Sloops of 1875: The Smaller Ram-Bowed Type". Mariner's Mirror. Cambridge, UK: Society for Nautical Research. 24 (April): 160–75.
  • Chesneau, Roger; Kolesnik, Eugene M., eds. (1979). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. Greenwich, UK: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-8317-0302-4.
  • Winfield, R.; Lyon, D. (2004). The Sail and Steam Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815–1889. London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-032-6.
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