Name Marathon class Built 1887–1889 Completed 5 | In commission 1889–1920 | |
 | ||
Builders Fairfields, GovanPortsmouth Naval DockyardChatham Naval Dockyard | ||
The Marathon-class cruiser was a class of second class cruiser of the Royal Navy ordered under the naval programme of 1887. The class was a smaller version of the Mersey class (lead ship - HMS Mersey).
Three of the ships, Melpomene, Magicienne and Marathon, were built for foreign (tropical) service, with a sheath of wood and copper - this added weight and made them slightly slower.
Boiler trials
By 1901, the Royal Navy had ordered eight Dürr boilers from Germany, to be installed as a trial on board Medusa as a substitute for the Belleville boilers then in naval use.
References
Marathon-class cruiser Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA