Name Curacoa Class and type Comus-class corvette Beam 44 ft (13 m) Length 69 m Draft 5.8 m | Yard number 210 Displacement 2,380 tons Launched 18 April 1878 Weight 2,418 tons | |
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Fate Sold 1904 for breaking up. Builder Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company | ||
HMS Curacoa was an Comus-class corvette of the Royal Navy, built by John Elder & Co., Govan and launched on 18 April 1878.
The corvette commenced service on the Cape of Good Hope and West Africa Station before being transferred to the Australia Station arriving on 5 August 1890. She left the Australia Station in December 1894.
Recently discovered log books from descendants of Mr.(Cptn) J.P. Shipton, record the journey to Australia. Daily logs show Curacoa leaving port in the UK on 1 April 1889, with stops at Perth, Albany, Adelaide, Launceston, Melbourne, Sydney, Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch / Lyttleton, and the final entry shows 31 December 1890, in port at Lyttleton (near Christchurch), New Zealand.
Curacoa was sent to the Ellice Islands and between 9 and 16 October 1892 Captain Gibson visited each of the islands to make a formal declaration that the islands were to be a British Protectorate. In June 1893 Captain Gibson visited the southern Solomon islands and made the formal declaration of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate.
Her later years were spent as a training cruiser. In February 1900 she visited Madeira, Commander Herbert Lyon in command.
She was sold in May 1904 to King of Garston for breaking up.