The ''Cheerful''-class gunboat was a class of twenty
gunboat
A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies.
History Pre-ste ...
s built for 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 ...
in 1855 for use in the
Crimean War
The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia.
Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...
.
[
]
Design
The ''Cheerful'' class was designed by W.H. Walker (who also designed the preceding and classes). The ships were of particularly shallow draft for coastal bombardment in the shallow waters of the Baltic and Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...
during the Crimean War.[
]
Propulsion
One-cylinder horizontal direct-acting single-expansion steam engines built by John Penn and Sons, with two boilers, provided 20 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 ...
through a single screw, sufficient for .[
]
Armament
Ships of the class were armed with two 32-pounder smooth bore muzzle loading cannons.[
]
Ships
Notes
Citations
References
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{{Cheerful-class gunboat
Gunboat classes
Cheerful
Gunboats of the Royal Navy