HMS Alert (1856)
HMS Alert in pack ice during the Arctic Expedition of 1876
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| History | |
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 United Kingdom
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| Name: | HMS Alert |
| Ordered: | 2 April 1853 |
| Builder: | Royal Dockyard, Pembroke |
| Cost: | £36,743 |
| Laid down: | January 1855 |
| Launched: | 20 May 1856 |
| Acquired: | 1855 by RN, 1884 by USN and 1885 by Canada |
| Commissioned: | 21 January 1858 |
| Decommissioned: | 1894 |
| Out of service: | 1894 |
| Fate: | Loaned to US Navy on 20 February 1884–1885 and Canada 1885–1894; sold in 1894 and broken up |
 United States
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| Name: | Alert |
| Operator: | US Navy |
| Fate: | Loaned by the Admiralty to Canadian Government in May 1885 |
 Canada
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| Name: | CGS Alert |
| Operator: | Marine Service of Canada of the Department of Marine and Fisheries |
| Fate: | Sold in November 1894 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Cruizer-class screw sloop |
| Displacement: | 1,045 tons (1,240 tons after conversion for Arctic exploration) |
| Tons burthen: | 747 51/94 bm |
| Length: |
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| Beam: | 31 ft 10 in (9.70 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 17 ft 6 in (5.33 m) |
| Installed power: | Indicated 383 hp (286 kW) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Sail plan: | Barque-rigged |
| Speed: | 8.8 kn (16.3 km/h) under power |
| Complement: |
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| Armament: |
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HMS Alert was a 17-gun wooden screw sloop of the Cruizer class of the Royal Navy, launched in 1856 and broken up in 1894. She was the eleventh ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name (or a variant of it), and was noted for her Arctic exploration work; in 1876 she reached a record latitude of 82° North. Alert briefly served with the United States Navy, and ended her career with the Canadian Marine Service as a lighthouse tender and buoy ship.
The wooden sloops of the Cruizer class were designed under the direction of Lord John Hay, and after his "Committee of Reference" was disbanded, their construction was supervised by the new Surveyor of the Navy, Sir Baldwin Walker. Ordered together with her sister-ship Falcon on 2 April 1853, she was laid down at the Royal Dockyard, Pembroke in January 1855. She was fitted at Chatham with a two-cylinder horizontal single-expansion steam engine, which was supplied by Ravenhill & Salkeld at a cost of £6,052 and generated an indicated horsepower of 383 hp (286 kW); driving a single screw, this gave a maximum speed of 8.8 knots (16.3 km/h). The class was given a barque-rig sail plan.
All the ships of the class were provided with one 32-pounder (56cwt) long gun on a pivot mount and sixteen 32-pounder (32cwt) carriage guns in a broadside arrangement. When converted for Arctic exploration in 1874, her armament was reduced to a token outfit of four Armstrong breech-loaders.
Alert spent the first 11 years of her life on the Pacific Station, based at Esquimalt at the southern tip of Vancouver Island, Canada. Alert Bay, British Columbia is named after the ship, and nearby Pearse Island, at the north entrance to Johnstone Strait, is named after Commander William Alfred Rumbulow Pearse, her commanding officer. During this period she returned to Plymouth between October 1861 and May 1863 for a refit. Her service on the Pacific station was the type of work for which her class had been designed—the policing of Britain's far-flung maritime empire.
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Wikipedia