HMS Hector (1862)

Line drawing from Brassey's Naval Annual 1888
History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Hector
Namesake:	Hector
Ordered:	25 January 1861
Builder:	Robert Napier and Sons, Govan
Cost:	£294,000
Laid down:	8 March 1861
Launched:	26 September 1862
Completed:	22 February 1864
Commissioned:	January 1864
Refit:	1867–68
Fate:	Sold, 1905
General characteristics (Hector)
Class and type:	Hector-class armoured frigate
Displacement:	7,000 long tons (7,100 t)
Length:	280 ft 2 in (85.4 m)
Beam:	56 ft 5 in (17.2 m)
Draught:	26 ft (7.9 m)
Installed power:	3,256 ihp (2,428 kW)
Propulsion:	1 shaft, 1 horizontal return connecting rod steam engine
Sail plan:	Barque-rigged
Speed:	12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph)
Range:	800 nmi (1,500 km; 920 mi) at 12 kn (22 km/h; 14 mph)
Complement:	530
Armament:	As built: 4 × 7-inch (178 mm) Armstrong breech-loaders 20 × 68-pounder (206 mm) smoothbore muzzle-loading guns From 1868: 16 × 7-inch (178 mm) rifled muzzle-loading guns 2 × 8-inch (203 mm) rifled muzzle-loading guns
Armour:	Belt: 2.5–4.5 in (64–114 mm) Bulkheads: 4.5 in (114 mm)

HMS Hector was the lead ship of the Hector-class armoured frigates ordered by the Royal Navy in 1861. Upon completion in 1864, she was assigned to the Channel Fleet. The ship was paid off in 1867 to refit and be re-armed. Upon recommissioning in 1868, she was assigned as the guard ship of the Fleet Reserve in the southern district until 1886. She usually served as Queen Victoria's guard ship when the sovereign was resident at her vacation home on the Isle of Wight. Hector was paid off in 1886 and hulked in 1900 as a storage ship before being sold for scrap in 1905.

The Hector-class ironclads, like their immediate predecessors, the Defence-class, were designed as smaller and cheaper versions of the Warrior-class armoured frigates. They were modified versions of the Defence-class ships with additional armour and more powerful engines.

HMS Hector was 280 feet 2 inches (85.4 m) long between perpendiculars. She had a beam of 56 feet 5 inches (17.2 m) and a draft of 26 feet (7.9 m). The ship was 300 long tons (300 t) overweight and displaced 7,000 long tons (7,100 t). The hull was subdivided by watertight transverse bulkheads into 92 compartments and had a double bottom underneath the engine and boiler rooms. The ships were designed with a very low centre of gravity and had a metacentric height of 4 feet 6 inches (1.4 m). While handy in manoeuvering, they rolled quite badly.