Amazon-class sloop

The Amazon class was a class of six screw sloops of wooden construction built for the Royal Navy between 1865 and 1866.

HMS Dryad at anchor, with sails airing
Class overview
Name	Amazon-class sloops
Builders	Pembroke Dockyard Devonport Dockyard
Operators	Royal Navy
Built	1865–1866
In commission	1865–1885
Completed	6
Lost	2
General characteristics
Type	Screw sloop
Displacement	1574 tons
Length	187 ft (57 m)
Beam	36 ft (11 m)
Draught	17 ft (5.2 m)[1]
Installed power	300 horsepower[1]
Propulsion	Single screw Two-cylinder horizontal single-expansion steam engine
Sail plan	Barque
Complement	150[1]
Armament	As built: 2 × 7-inch (6½-ton) muzzle-loading rifled guns 2 × 64-pounder muzzle-loading rifled guns As converted (Dryad, Nymphe & Vestal): 9 × 64-pounder muzzle-loading rifled guns[2]

Construction

Design

Designed by Edward Reed,^[2] the Royal Navy Director of Naval Construction, they were equipped with a ram bow.^[2] The hull was of wooden construction, but they were the first class of sloops to incorporate a form of composite construction; they had iron cross beams while retaining wooden framing.^[2]

Propulsion

Propulsion was provided by a two-cylinder horizontal single-expansion steam engine by Ravenhill, Salkeld & Company driving a single 15 ft (4.6 m) screw. Vestal and Nymphe were fitted with three-cylinder Maudslay engines.^[2]

Sail plan

All the ships of the class were built with a barque rig.^[2]

Armament

The class was designed with two 7-inch (6½-ton) muzzle-loading rifled guns mounted on slides on centre-line pivots, and two 64-pounder muzzle-loading rifled guns on broadside trucks. Dryad, Nymphe and Vestal were rearmed in the early 1870s with an armament of nine 64-pounder muzzle-loading rifled guns, four each side and a centre-line pivot mount at the bow.^[2]

Ships

Name	Ship Builder	Launched	Fate
Amazon	Pembroke Dockyard	1865	Sunk in collision with SS Osprey, off Start Point, English Channel 10 July 1866[1]
Vestal	Pembroke Dockyard	1865	Sold to Castle for breaking in December 1884[2]
Niobe	Devonport Dockyard	1866	Wrecked off Cape Blanc on Miquelon Island, off the Atlantic Coast of Newfoundland and Labrador 21 May 1874[1]
Dryad	Devonport Dockyard	1866	Sold in September 1885 and broken up in April 1886[2]
Daphne	Pembroke Dockyard	1866	Sold for breaking on 7 November 1882[2]
Nymphe	Devonport Dockyard	1866	Sold for breaking in December 1884[2]