The ''Camelion'' class was a class of screw-driven

sloops A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...

of wood construction, designed by Isaac Watts and operated by the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

. Eight ships of the class were built from 1858 to 1866 with another eight cancelled. They were initially rated as second-class sloops, but were later reclassified as

corvette A corvette is a small warship. It is traditionally the smallest class of vessel considered to be a proper (or " rated") warship. The warship class above the corvette is that of the frigate, while the class below was historically that of the slo ...

Design

The class was designed by Issac Watts as second-class

of 17 guns, and were a lengthened version of the .

Construction

Built of a traditional wood structure, they were long at the gundeck, in

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...

and displaced 1,365 tons. A

barque A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing ship, sailing vessel with three or more mast (sailing), masts having the fore- and mainmasts Square rig, rigged square and only the mizzen (the aftmost mast) Fore-and-aft rig, rigged fore and aft. Som ...

rig was fitted to allow easy sail handling with a relatively small crew of 180.

Propulsion

They were fitted with a two-cylinder horizontal single-expansion steam engine (although ''Perseus'' and ''Reindeer'' received single trunk steam engines) driving a single screw. These engines generated 200

nominal horsepower Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are the ...

, giving a speed of approximately .

Armament

They were armed with five 40-pounder breech-loading guns and twelve 32-pounder muzzle-loading smoothbore guns, although ''Reindeer'' was completed with a single 110-pounder and five 64-pounder guns.Winfield p.216

Ships

The first two vessels were ordered on 3 April 1854, although neither was laid down for several years. Another three were ordered on 1 April 1857 and a further three on 27 March 1858. The final eight ships were ordered in two batches on 5 March 1860 and 25 March 1861, but were either cancelled, or in the case of ''Circassian'' and ''Trent'', completed as ironclad sloops under new names.

Notes

References

Citations

Bibliography

* *

External links

Royal Navy cruisers at www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk
{{Camelion class sloop Ship classes of the Royal Navy Sloop classes Camelion