Operators Royal Navy Succeeded by Fantome class | Preceded by Amazon class Built 1867–1870 | |
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Name Eclipse-class sloops
(corvettes from 1876) Builders Devonport Dockyard
Portsmouth Dockyard
Chatham Dockyard
Sheerness Dockyard
Deptford Dockyard | ||
The Eclipse class was a class of seven 6-gun wooden screw sloops built for the Royal Navy between 1867 and 1870. They were re-armed and re-classified as 12-gun corvettes in 1876. Two further vessels were proposed but never ordered.
Contents
Design
A development of the Amazon class, they were designed by Edward Reed, the Royal Navy's Director of Naval Construction. The hull was of wooden construction, but with iron cross-beams, and a ram bow was fitted.
Propulsion
Propulsion was provided by a two-cylinder horizontal steam engine driving a single screw. Spartan, Sirius and Tenedos had compound steam engines, and the remainder of the class had single-expansion steam engines.
Sail plan
All the ships of the class were built with a ship rig, but this was replaced with a barque rig.
Armament
The Eclipse class was designed with two 7-inch (6½-ton) muzzle-loading rifled guns mounted in traversing slides and four 64-pounder muzzle-loading rifled guns. They were re-classified as corvettes in 1876, carrying a homogenous armament of twelve 64-pounder muzzle-loading rifled guns.