HMS Albatross (1873)

For other ships with the same name, see HMS Albatross.

HMS Albatross was a 4-gun Fantome-class sloop built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1870s.

HMS Albatross's sister ship, HMS Egeria
History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Albatross
Namesake	Albatross
Builder	Chatham Royal Dockyard
Laid down	1872
Launched	27 April 1873
Completed	February 1874
Fate	Scrapped, February 1889
General characteristics
Class & type	Fantome-class sloop
Displacement	949 long tons (964 t)
Tons burthen	727 bm
Length	160 ft (48.8 m) (p/p)
Beam	31 ft 4 in (9.6 m)
Draught	14 ft (4.3 m)
Depth	15 ft 6 in (4.7 m)
Installed power	838 ihp (625 kW)
Propulsion	1 shaft 1 × 2-cylinder horizontal compound-expansion steam engine 3 × cylindrical boilers
Sail plan	Barque rig
Speed	10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Range	1,000 nmi (1,900 km; 1,200 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement	125
Armament	2 × 7-inch rifled muzzle-loading guns 2 × 6.3-inch 64-pounder rifled muzzle-loading guns

History

In May 1886, she was driven ashore at Hong Kong whilst going to the assistance of the British ship Dafila, which had also driven ashore.^[1] Both vessels were refloated, and HMS Albatross towed Dafila in to Hoikow, China.^[2]

Figurehead

This carving is not a true figurehead but a scroll designed for a sloop’s vertical bow.

The carving was still at Chatham Dockyard in 1938 but 11 years later, it had been moved to HMS Ganges in Shotley, Suffolk. This establishment closed in 1984 and the carving was transferred to the collections of the then Royal Naval Museum.^[3]

The carving can be seen in the Figureheads Gallery at the National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth.^[4]