HMS Melita (1888)
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Watercolour, 1896, by Gaetano Esposito
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 United Kingdom
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| Name: | HMS Melita |
| Builder: | Malta Dockyard |
| Cost: | £60,179 |
| Laid down: | 18 July 1883 |
| Launched: | 20 March 1888 |
| Commissioned: | 27 October 1892 |
| Renamed: | Ringdove in December 1915 |
| Fate: | Sold on 9 July 1920 to the Falmouth Docks Board |
 United Kingdom
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| Fate: | Broken up in the second quarter of 1937 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Mariner-class composite screw sloop |
| Displacement: | 970 tons |
| Length: | 167 ft (51 m) |
| Beam: | 32 ft (9.8 m) |
| Draught: | 14 ft (4.3 m) |
| Installed power: | 850 ihp (630 kW) |
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| Sail plan: | Barque-rigged |
| Speed: | 11 1⁄2 knots (21.3 km/h) |
| Range: | Approximately 2,100 nmi (3,900 km) at 10 kn (19 km/h) |
| Complement: | 126 |
| Armament: |
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HMS Melita was a Royal Navy Mariner-class composite screw gunvessel of 8 guns. She was the only significant Royal Navy warship ever to be built in Malta Dockyard, hence the name, which is the Latin name for the island. She was renamed HMS Ringdove in 1915 and sold as a salvage vessel to Falmouth Docks Board in 1920, when her name was changed to Ringdove's Aid. She was sold again in 1927 to the Liverpool & Glasgow Salvage Association, who changed her name to Restorer, and she was finally broken up in 1937, 54 years after her keel was laid.
Designed by Nathaniel Barnaby, the Royal Navy Director of Naval Construction, her hull was of composite construction; that is, iron keel, frames, stem and stern posts with wooden planking. She was fitted with a 2-cylinder horizontal compound expansion steam engine driving a single screw, which was also built in the Malta Dockyard. She was rigged with three masts, with square rig on the fore- and main-masts, making her a barque-rigged vessel. Her keel was laid at a special slipway built for her on the Senglea side of French Creek, which was still known as the "Melita Slip" into modern times. Although laid down on 18 July 1883, work progressed slowly; the entire enterprise had been designed to employ the local workforce when the Mediterranean Fleet was absent, and the fleet's frequent presence caused work on the new vessel to be halted all too often. She was launched on 20 March 1888 by Princess Victoria Melita, the twelve-year-old daughter of the Duke of Edinburgh who was Commander-in-Chief of the British Mediterranean Fleet.The Army and Navy Gazette reported that
Her entire class were re-classified from gunvessels to sloops in November 1884 long before Melita entered service.
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