HMS ''Reindeer'' 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.

Construction

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 screw, 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 15 January 1883 and she was launched on 14 November 1883. 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

She was converted to a boom defence vessel in 1904. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, she collided with the Royal Navy stores carrier in the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ...

on 6 June 1915, sinking ''Immingham''. She was lent to the Liverpool Salvage Association as a salvage vessel in 1917. Re-engined in 1918 by

Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company The Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Limited was a Scottish shipbuilding company in the Govan area on the Clyde in Glasgow. Fairfields, as it is often known, was a major warship builder, turning out many vessels for the Royal Navy ...

with a engine, she was renamed ''Reindeer I'' and sold to the Halifax Shipyard Ltd as a salvage ship on 12 July 1924. She was abandoned at sea on 12 March 1932. Her 30 crew were rescued by the ocean liner .

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Reindeer (1883) Mariner-class gunvessels Ships built in Plymouth, Devon 1883 ships Victorian-era gunboats of the United Kingdom World War I sloops of the United Kingdom Auxiliary gateship classes Maritime incidents in 1915 Maritime incidents in 1932