HMS ''Racer'' was a

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 ...

''Mariner''-class composite screw gunvessel of 8 guns.

Building

Nathaniel Barnaby Sir Nathaniel Barnaby, (25 February 1829 – 16 June 1915) was Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy from 1872 to 1885. Biography Born on 25 February 1829 in Chatham, Barnaby began his career as a naval apprentice at Sheerness in 1843. He won ...

, the Royal Navy

Director of Naval Construction The Director of Naval Construction (DNC) also known as the Department of the Director of Naval Construction and Directorate of Naval Construction and originally known as the Chief Constructor of the Navy was a senior principal civil officer resp ...

, her hull was of composite construction; that is, iron keel, frames, stem and stern posts with wooden planking. She was fitted with a 2-cylinder horizontal compound-expansion steam engine driving a single propeller, produced by Hawthorn Leslie. She was rigged with three masts, with square rig on the fore- and main-masts, making her a

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

-rigged vessel. Her keel was laid at

Devonport Royal Dockyard His Majesty's Naval Base, Devonport (HMNB Devonport) is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy (the others being HMNB Clyde and HMNB Portsmouth) and is the sole nuclear repair and refuelling facility for the Ro ...

on 9 April 1883 and she was launched on 6 August 1884. Her entire class were re-classified in November 1884 as

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 ...

before they entered service.

Career

''Racer'' was commissioned into the Royal Navy on 9 April 1885. She served in

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierr ...

in 1886 and became a tender to the training ship HMS Prince of Wales (1860), HMS ''Britannia'' at Dartmouth, Devon in 1896. She was present at the

Fleet Review A fleet review or naval review is an event where a gathering of ships from a particular navy is paraded and reviewed by an incumbent head of state and/or other official civilian and military dignitaries. A number of national navies continue to ...

Spithead Spithead is an area of the Solent and a roadstead off Gilkicker Point in Hampshire, England. It is protected from all winds except those from the southeast. It receives its name from the Spit, a sandbank stretching south from the Hampshire ...

in celebration of the Diamond Jubilee on 26 June 1897. When Royal Navy officer training moved to

Royal Naval College, Osborne The Royal Naval College, Osborne, was a training college for Royal Navy officer cadets on the Osborne House estate, Isle of Wight, established in 1903 and closed in 1921. Boys were admitted at about the age of thirteen to follow a course lasting ...

, near Cowes, in 1903, ''Racer'' became a tender to the new establishment. In 1916–17 ''Racer'' was rebuilt as a salvage vessel, being given the starboard machinery of ''Torpedo Boat 8'', as well as two 17-ton derricks and submersible electric, steam centrifugal and compressed air pumps capable of pumping 3,000 tonnes (3 million litres) of water per hour. Hmtlaurentic

Each summer from 1920 to 1924 ''Racer'' was the

diving support vessel A diving support vessel is a ship that is used as a floating base for professional diving projects. Basic requirements are the ability to keep station accurately and reliably throughout a diving operation, often in close proximity to drilling or ...

to recover

gold bar A gold bar, also called gold bullion or gold ingot, is a quantity of refined metallic gold of any shape that is made by a bar producer meeting standard conditions of manufacture, labeling, and record keeping. Larger gold bars that are produced ...

s from HMS , which had been sunk by German mines at the mouth of

Lough Swilly Lough Swilly () in Ireland is a glacial fjord or sea inlet lying between the western side of the Inishowen Peninsula and the Fanad Peninsula, in County Donegal. Along with Carlingford Lough and Killary Harbour it is one of three glacial fjords ...

in 1917. Her derricks also raised many hundreds of tons of wreckage and sand from ''Laurentic'' that divers removed to reach the gold. Her divers recovered 3,186 of the 3,211 gold bars.

Disposal

''Racer'' was sold for scrap to Hughes Bolckow of

Blyth, Northumberland Blyth () is a town and civil parish in southeast Northumberland, England. It lies on the coast, to the south of the River Blyth and is approximately northeast of Newcastle upon Tyne. It has a population of about 37,000, as of 2011. The port o ...

on 6 November 1928.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Racer (1884) 1884 ships Mariner-class gunvessels Ships built in Plymouth, Devon Victorian-era gunboats of the United Kingdom World War I sloops of the United Kingdom