HMS Daring (1874)

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

HMS Daring was a 4-gun Fantome-class sloop of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1874 and sold for breaking in 1889 after serving most of her career in the Pacific.

HMS Daring's sister ship, HMS Egeria
History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Daring
Builder	Blackwall Yard, London
Laid down	1872
Launched	4 February 1874[1]
Completed	September 1874
Decommissioned	1889
Fate	Sold for scrap, August 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	915 ihp (682 kW)
Propulsion	1 shaft 1 × 2-cylinder horizontal compound trunk 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

Construction

Daring was constructed of an iron frame sheathed with teak and copper (hence 'composite'), and powered by a trunk engine provided by John Penn & Sons.^[2] She was fitted with a full barque rig of sails.

History

Daring served on the Pacific and China Stations, working some of the time for the Canadian Government, including conducting hydrography, for which the Canadian Government bore half the cost.^[3] In Spring 18?? she carried Joseph Howe (the Provincial Secretary at the time) to the mouth of the Tangier River in Halifax County, Nova Scotia. There he arranged to have law and order restored by carving the gold diggings into appropriately sized lots, and offering them for rental for $40.^[4] In 1877 Commander John Hammer made a sketch survey of the Skeena River entrance from Daring.^[3]

Crew of HMS Daring circa 1885, and their mascot, a rooster

Fate

She was sold to a Mr J Cohen in 1889 and broken up.