The Condor-class gunvessel was a class of four Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 composite gunvessels of 3 guns, built between 1876 and 1877. They were all hulked or sold before 1893, giving them an active life of less than 15 years.

Design

Designed by Nathaniel Barnaby

Nathaniel Barnaby

Sir Nathaniel Barnaby, KCB was Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy from 1872 to 1885....

, the Royal Navy Director of Naval Construction

Director of Naval Construction

The Director of Naval Construction was a senior British civil servant post in the Admiralty, that part of the British Civil Service that oversaw the Royal Navy. The post existed from 1860 to 1966....

, the hull was of composite construction; that is, iron keel, frames, stem and stern posts with wooden planking.

Propulsion

They were fitted with three boilers, a 2-cylinder horizontal compound expansion steam engine and a single screw. Griffon and Falcon were engined by Laird Brothers and had a feathering propeller. Flamingo and Condor were engined by John Elder & Co, and all ships had a designed
750 ihp, developing about 11.5 knots (22.5 km/h) under power.

Sail plan

The class was rigged with three masts, with square rig on the fore- and main-masts, making them barque

Barque

A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts.- History of the term :The word barque appears to have come from the Greek word baris, a term for an Egyptian boat. This entered Latin as barca, which gave rise to the Italian barca, Spanish barco, and the French barge and...

-rigged vessels.

Armament

The ships of the class were fitted with a 7-in (4½-ton) muzzle-loading rifle and two 64-pdr (64cwt) muzzle-loading rifles, except for Flamingo, which had two 20-pdr breech-loaders in place of one of the 64-pdr muzzle-loading rifles. In 1884 Flamingo and Griffon were rearmed with two 5-in Vavasseur breech loaders replacing the 7-in muzzle-loading rifle.

Ships

Name	Ship Builder	|Launched	|Fate
	Devonport Dockyard	13 December 1876	Hulk 1893. Sold to Plymouth Port Sanitary Authority on 25 May 1923. Sold on 4 May 1931 for breaking
	Laird Brothers, Birkenhead	16 December 1876	Sold to the Board of Trade as a hulk on 28 September 1891 and renamed Richmond
	Devonport Dockyard	28 December 1876	Sold to George Cohen in August 1889
	Laird Brothers, Birkenhead	4 January 1877	Hulk in 1890. Sold to E W Payne & Company on 25 June 1920

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