HMS ''Sparrowhawk'' was a
B-class torpedo boat destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort
larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in 1 ...
of the
Royal Navy. She was completed by
Laird, Son & Company,
Birkenhead, and was launched on 8 October 1895. She served on the
China Station and was wrecked in the mouth of the
Yangtze River in 1904. She was one of four
''Quail''-class destroyers.
Design and construction
HMS ''Sparrowhawk'' was the second of four 30-knot destroyers ordered from Laird's as part of the 1894–1895 Royal Navy shipbuilding programme.
[Lyon 2001, pp. 61–62.] As with other early Royal Navy destroyers, the detailed design was left to the builder, with the Admiralty laying down only broad requirements.
[Chesneau and Kolesnik 1979, p. 87.][Manning 1961, p. 39.] In order to meet the contract speed of , Laird's design was powered by two four-cylinder
triple expansion steam engines, fed by four
Normand boiler
Three-drum boilers are a class of water-tube boiler used to generate steam, typically to power ships. They are compact and of high evaporative power, factors that encourage this use. Other boiler designs may be more efficient, although bulkier, an ...
s, rated at , and was fitted with four funnels.
[Chesneau and Kolesnik 1979, p. 94.]
The ship had an
overall length of , a
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 ...
of and a
draught of .
Displacement
Displacement may refer to:
Physical sciences
Mathematics and Physics
*Displacement (geometry), is the difference between the final and initial position of a point trajectory (for instance, the center of mass of a moving object). The actual path ...
was light and full load,
[Lyon 2001, pp. 61–62.] while crew was 63.
[Manning 1961, p. 40.] Armament consisted of a
QF 12 pounder 12 cwt ( calibre) gun on a platform on the ship's
conning tower
A conning tower is a raised platform on a ship or submarine, often armored, from which an officer in charge can conn the vessel, controlling movements of the ship by giving orders to those responsible for the ship's engine, rudder, lines, and gro ...
(in practice the platform was also used as the ship's bridge), with a secondary armament of five 6-pounder guns, and two 18-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes.
[Lyon 2001, pp. 98–99.][Friedman 2009, p. 40.]
''Sparrowhawk'' was laid down as Yard No 607 on 30 May 1895, and was launched on 8 October 1895.
[Lyon 2001, p. 61.] She reached a speed of over a measured mile and an average speed of over three hours during trials on 11 December 1896.
[.] ''Sparrowhawk'' commissioned in June 1897.
Service
Newly commissioned, ''Sparrowhawk'' took part in the
naval review off
Spithead on 26 June 1897 to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of
Queen Victoria.
Laird's thirty-knotters were considered strongly built ships and good seaboats, suitable for deployment on overseas stations,
[Lyon 2001, p. 116.] and so ''Sparrowhawk'' and sister ship were deployed to the
Pacific Station in 1897, being based at
Esquimault
The Township of Esquimalt is a municipality at the southern tip of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. It is bordered to the east by the provincial capital, Victoria, to the south by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, to the west by Esquim ...
,
British Columbia,
Canada.
[Lyon 2001, pp. 62, 100.]
''Sparrowhawk'' was later deployed to the
China Station. On 17 June 1904, ''Sparrowhawk'' struck an uncharted rock off the mouth of the
Yangtze river during fleet exercises. While all the crew survived, attempts by the battleship to recover the stricken destroyer failed, and ''Sparrowhawk'' sank.
[Lyon 2001, p. 62.]
References
Bibliography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Sparrowhawk (1895)
Quail-class destroyers
Ships built on the River Mersey
1895 ships
B-class destroyers (1913)
Maritime incidents in 1904
Shipwrecks of China
Shipwrecks in the East China Sea