Name Comet In service 1822-1869 Beam 3.7 m (12 ft 1.7 in) Launched 23 May 1822 | Laid down 21 November 1821 Displacement 239 long tons (243 t) Construction started 21 November 1821 Builder Deptford Dockyard | |
Length 35.1 m (115 ft 1.9 in) overall
30.8 m (101 ft 0.6 in) PP | ||
HMS Comet was the first wooden paddle-steamer built for the Royal Navy.
Comet was built at the yards in Deptford by Boulton, Watt & Co, which was at the time just outside London, in 1822. She was ordered as a tug, for towing ships out of harbour when the wind was not enough to allow them to move by themselves, specifically "to be employed in towing HM ships in the Thames and Medway".
The ship was designed by Oliver Lang, the master shipwright at Woolwich Dockyard. She was fitted with a two-mast schooner rig, as well as a twin cylinder side-lever engine, which produced 80 nominal horsepower.
Humphry Davy travelled on the Comet to Norway to test his zinc protectors for ships' copper bottoms in the summer of 1824.
References
HMS Comet (1822) Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA