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HMS Rattler (1843)
Encyclopedia
HMS Rattler was a 12-gun wooden sloop
Sloop
A sloop is a sail boat with a fore-and-aft rig and a single mast farther forward than the mast of a cutter....
of the 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...
and the first British warship to adopt a screw propeller powered by a steam engine
Steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...
. She was arguably the first such warship in the world - the sloop USS Princeton
USS Princeton (1843)
The first Princeton was the first screw steam warship in the United States Navy. She was launched in 1843, decommissioned in 1847, and broken up in 1849....
was launched after the Rattler, but was placed in commission much sooner.
Background
Screw propulsion had some obvious potential advantages for warships over paddle propulsionPaddle steamer
A paddle steamer is a steamship or riverboat, powered by a steam engine, using paddle wheels to propel it through the water. In antiquity, Paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were wheelers driven by animals or humans...
. Firstly, paddlewheels were exposed to enemy fire in combat, whereas a propeller and its machinery were tucked away safely well below deck. Secondly, the space taken up by paddlewheels restricted the number of guns a warship could carry, thus reducing its broadside
Broadside
A broadside is the side of a ship; the battery of cannon on one side of a warship; or their simultaneous fire in naval warfare.-Age of Sail:...
. These potential advantages were well understood by the British Admiralty, but it was not convinced that the propeller was an effective propulsion system. It was only in 1840, when the world's first propeller-driven steamship, , successfully completed a series of trials against fast paddle-wheelers, that the Navy decided to conduct further tests of the technology. For this purpose, the Navy built Rattler.
HMS Rattler was launched on 12 April 1843 at Sheerness Dockyard and spent two years on trials. She was commissioned at Woolwich on 12 December 1844 and was first commanded by Commander Henry Smith.
Service history
Rattler was pitted against a number of paddlewheelers from 1843 to 1845. These extended trials were to prove conclusively that the screw propeller was as good as, indeed superior to, the paddlewheel as a propulsion system. The most famous of these trials took place in March 1845, with Rattler conclusively beating HMS Alecto in a series of races, followed by a tug-of-war contest in which Rattler towed Alecto backwards at a speed of 2 knots (3.9 km/h). It is this which is memorialised to this day in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. A large number of different propellers were also tested on Rattler during this period to find the most effective screw design.On May 17, 1845 the Rattler and the steamer Monkey towed HMS Erebus
HMS Erebus (1826)
HMS Erebus was a Hecla-class bomb vessel designed by Sir Henry Peake and constructed by the Royal Navy in Pembroke dockyard, Wales in 1826. The vessel was named after the dark region in Hades of Greek mythology called Erebus...
and HMS Terror
HMS Terror (1813)
HMS Terror was a bomb vessel designed by Sir Henry Peake and constructed by the Royal Navy in the Davy shipyard in Topsham, Devon. The ship, variously listed as being of either 326 or 340 tons, carried two mortars, one and one .-War service:...
to Orkney, Rattler returning to Woolwich on June 10.
In June 1845 Rattler served with the 1845 Experimental Squadron.
In 1846 Rattler served with the Squadron of Evolution, departing the Squadron in November for Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...
from where she towed HMS Superb
HMS Superb (1842)
HMS Superb was a two-deck 80-gun second rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 6 September 1842 at Pembroke Dockyard.She was one of the Vanguard class, designed by Sir William Symonds, Surveyor of the Navy and an innovative and controversial naval architect...
. She also visited Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
and South America, returning to be paid off in September 1847.
Rattler was captained by Commander Arthur Cumming
Arthur Cumming (Royal Navy officer)
Admiral Sir Arthur Cumming KCB was an officer of the Royal Navy. He was born in Nancy, France to Sir Henry Cumming, a general in the British Army and received naval education at the Royal Naval College in Portsmouth...
from 12 February 1849 to 15 April 1851. During this time she was stationed off the west coast of Africa and, on 30 October 1849, captured the Brazilian slave
Slave ship
Slave ships were large cargo ships specially converted for the purpose of transporting slaves, especially newly purchased African slaves to Americas....
brigantine
Brigantine
In sailing, a brigantine or hermaphrodite brig is a vessel with two masts, only the forward of which is square rigged.-Origins of the term:...
Alepide.
On August 4, 1855, Rattler, HMS Eaglet
HMS Eaglet
Five ships and a training establishment of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Eaglet:*HMS Eaglet was an 8-gun ketch built in 1655 and sold in 1674....
and USS Powhatan fought
Battle of Kuhlan
The Battle of Ty-ho Bay was a significant naval engagement in 1855 involving the British Royal Navy, the United States Navy and Chinese pirates. The action off Tai O, Hong Kong was to rescue captured merchant vessels, held by a fleet of armed war-junks. British and American forces defeated the...
a naval battle near Tai O village, Lantau, with Chinese pirates.
She later served in Africa and the East Indies, taking part in the Second Anglo-Burmese War
Second Anglo-Burmese War
The Second Anglo-Burmese War was the second of the three wars fought between the Burmese and the British Empire during the 19th century, with the outcome of the gradual extinction of Burmese sovereignty and independence....
. She was finally broken up in late 1856.