was the

lead ship The lead ship, name ship, or class leader is the first of a series or class of ships all constructed according to the same general design. The term is applicable to naval ships and large civilian vessels. Large ships are very complex and may ...

in the of three composite hulled, sail-and- steam corvettes of the early

Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...

. The ship was named for a mountain located between

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...

and

Nara prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Nara Prefecture has a population of 1,321,805 and has a geographic area of . Nara Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the north, Osaka Prefecture to the northwest, Wakayama P ...

Background

''Katsuragi'' was designed as an iron-ribbed, wooden-hulled, three-masted barque-rigged

sloop-of-war In the 18th century and most of the 19th, a sloop-of-war in the Royal Navy was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. The rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above; thus, the term ''sloop-of-war'' enc ...

with a coal-fired double-expansion reciprocating

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...

with six cylindrical boilers driving a double screw.Chesneau, '' All the World’s Fighting Ships'', p. 233. Her basic design was based on experience gained in building and sloops, but was already somewhat obsolescent in comparison to contemporary European warships when completed. ''Katsuragi'' was laid down at

Yokosuka Naval Arsenal was one of four principal naval shipyards owned and operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy, and was located at Yokosuka, Kanagawa prefecture on Tokyo Bay, south of Yokohama. History In 1866, the Tokugawa shogunate government established the ...

18 August 1883 under the direction of British-educated Japanese

naval architect This is the top category for all articles related to architecture and its practitioners. {{Commons category, Architecture occupations Design occupations Architecture, Occupations ...

Sasō Sachū was a Japanese engineer and naval architect of the Meiji period and a career officer in the Imperial Japanese Navy. Biography Sasō was born in Kanazawa Domain (present day Kanazawa, Ishikawa) as the fourth son of Horio Jirobei, a samurai in t ...

. She was launched on 31 March 1885 and commissioned on 4 November 1887.

Operational history

''Katsuragi'' saw combat service in the

First Sino-Japanese War The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895) was a conflict between China and Japan primarily over influence in Korea. After more than six months of unbroken successes by Japanese land and naval forces and the loss of the po ...

of 1894–1895, patrolling between

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

Dairen Dalian () is a major sub-provincial port city in Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, and is Liaoning's second largest city (after the provincial capital Shenyang) and the third-most populous city of Northeast China. Located on the ...

and

Weihai Weihai (), formerly called Weihaiwei (), is a prefecture-level city and major seaport in easternmost Shandong province. It borders Yantai to the west and the Yellow Sea to the east, and is the closest Chinese city to South Korea. Weihai's popula ...

wei. She was also at the Battle of Yalu River in a reserve capacity in the Western Sea Fleet. On 21 March 1898, ''Katsuragi'' was re-designated a third-class

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-steam ...

,Nishida, ''Ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy'' and was used for coastal survey and patrol duties. On 6 October 1900, ''Katsuragi'' ran aground off of

Izu Ōshima is an inhabited volcanic island in the Izu archipelago in the Philippine Sea, off the coast of Honshu, Japan, east of the Izu Peninsula and southwest of Bōsō Peninsula. As with the other islands in the Izu Island group, Izu Ōshima form ...

. It took over a month to refloat her, after which she underwent extensive repairs at Yokosuka, during which time her sail rigging was removed, and she was rearmed with eight QF 2.5 pdr guns and six quadruple

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 ...

s, and her torpedoes were upgraded from 15 inch to 18-inch

torpedo tube A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units (also referred to as torpedo launchers) installed aboa ...

s. During the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...

of 1904–1905, ''Katsuragi'' served as a

guard ship A guard ship is a warship assigned as a stationary guard in a port or harbour, as opposed to a coastal patrol boat, which serves its protective role at sea. Royal Navy In the Royal Navy of the eighteenth century, peacetime guard ships were usual ...

in Nagasaki harbor. ''Katsuragi'' was refitted again in 1907, when her guns were replaced with four 3-inch and two 2.5-inch guns, and she was reclassified as a

survey ship A survey vessel is any type of ship or boat that is used for underwater surveys, usually to collect data for mapping or planning underwater construction or mineral extraction. It is a type of research vessel, and may be designed for the purpo ...

. She was reclassified again as a second-class coastal patrol vessel on 28 August 1912, and was removed from the

navy list A Navy Directory, formerly the Navy List or Naval Register is an official list of naval officers, their ranks and seniority, the ships which they command or to which they are appointed, etc., that is published by the government or naval author ...

and scrapped on 4 November 1913.

Notes

References

*Chesneau, Roger and Eugene M. Kolesnik (editors), ''All The World's Fighting Ships 1860-1905'', Conway Maritime Press, 1979 reprinted 2002, * {{DEFAULTSORT:Katsuragi Screw sloops of the Imperial Japanese Navy Naval ships of Japan 1885 ships First Sino-Japanese War naval ships of Japan Russo-Japanese War naval ships of Japan Three-masted ships Ships built by Yokosuka Naval Arsenal Katsuragi-class corvettes