The colonial service ''Defender''-class torpedo boats were designed by Thornycroft & Company for the defence of New Zealand, built at Chiswick in 1883 and shipped to New Zealand. They were quickly obsolete and were left to deteriorate ''in situ''. The remains of ''Defender'' are preserved at the Lyttelton Torpedo Boat Museum.

Construction

Acquired for the external defence of

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, at a cost of about £3,200 each, all four boats were built and engined by John I. Thornycroft & Company at Church Wharf,

Chiswick Chiswick ( ) is a district of west London, England. It contains Hogarth's House, the former residence of the 18th-century English artist William Hogarth; Chiswick House, a neo-Palladian villa regarded as one of the finest in England; and Full ...

on the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

.Winfield (2004) p.316

Armament

As built the class was armed with a single McEvoy

spar torpedo A spar torpedo is a weapon consisting of a bomb placed at the end of a long pole, or spar, and attached to a boat. The weapon is used by running the end of the spar into the enemy ship. Spar torpedoes were often equipped with a barbed spear at ...

, which was designed to be rammed into a vessel and explode beneath the

waterline The waterline is the line where the hull of a ship meets the surface of the water. Specifically, it is also the name of a special marking, also known as an international load line, Plimsoll line and water line (positioned amidships), that indi ...

. A single 2-barrelled

Nordenfelt gun The Nordenfelt gun was a multiple-barrel organ gun that had a row of up to twelve barrels. It was fired by pulling a lever back and forth and ammunition was gravity fed through chutes for each barrel. It was produced in a number of different c ...

comprised the total gun armament. The last pair had 18-inch

Whitehead torpedo The Whitehead torpedo was the first self-propelled or "locomotive" torpedo ever developed. It was perfected in 1866 by Robert Whitehead from a rough design conceived by Giovanni Luppis of the Austro-Hungarian Navy in Fiume. It was driven by a th ...

es fitted at build, and these were later retrofitted to ''Defender'' and ''Taiaroa''.

Transport to New Zealand

On 1 February 1884 the first pair were shipped aboard the sailing ship ''Lyttelton'' from

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

to Port Chalmers, New Zealand. The second pair followed on 3 May 1884.

Operational lives

Torpedo Corps units of the Permanent Militia were formed to operate the boats at the four main ports of Lyttelton (''Defender''),

Port Chalmers Port Chalmers is a town serving as the main port of the city of Dunedin, New Zealand. Port Chalmers lies ten kilometres inside Otago Harbour, some 15 kilometres northeast of Dunedin's city centre. History Early Māori settlement The origi ...

(''Taiaroa''), Devonport (''Waitemata'') and

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

(''Poneke''), each with its boatshed and slipway. The boats quickly became obsolete and by 1900 had largely been left to rot.

Construction

Armament

Transport to New Zealand

Operational lives

Ships

See also

References

Sources

External links