Name Almirante Tamandaré Completed 1893 Type Protected cruiser Launched 20 March 1890 Weight 4,735 tons | Laid down 1885 Fate sold/discarded 1920 Construction started 1885 Length 90 m | |
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Builder Rio de Janeiro Dockyards | ||
Almirante Tamandaré was a protected cruiser of the Brazilian Navy. The Brazilian cruiser with its armament of 6 in guns resembled the British Leander class (completed 1885-1887) which were among the first protected cruisers. Almirante Tamandaré was therefore also similar to the United States Navy protected cruisers Newark, San Francisco, and Philadelphia or the German Irene class from the late 1880s-early 1890s which shared the basic concept of the Leander type. Unlike most major warships in South American navies, Almirante Tamandaré was not ordered from a foreign shipyard but was built at Rio de Janeiro. It was the third largest ship in the Brazilian navy at the time (after the battleships Riachuelo and Aquidabã).
The completion of Almirante Tamandare coincided with the Revolta da Armada (revolt of the Navy) which was an 1893-1894 mutiny of most of Brazil's navy related to the country's political disputes. The revolt was unsuccessful, as the naval officers did not have effective support from their allies on land and the government was able to purchase various small or improvised naval vessels overseas to retake control of the coastline.
One contemporary source, writing 25 years after Almirante Tamandare's launch, said of the ship that:
A good many years ago Brazil made an effort to construct an ironclad from her own yards. The effort was commendable enough, but want of experience was bound to tell its tale, and, as a result, the seaworthiness of this particular vessel was always of a dubious quality. Owing to this, the experiment has not been repeated, and the pattern of this locally constructed vessel is now quite obsolete.