Hunt-class minesweeper (1916)
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HMS Belvoir circa 1917–1918
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| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Operators: |
 Royal Navy
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| Built: | 1916–1919 |
| In commission: | 1917–1962 |
| Completed: | 88 |
| Lost: | 4 |
| General characteristics (1939) | |
| Type: | Minesweeper |
| Displacement: | 710 long tons (721 t) |
| Length: | 231 ft (70.4 m) |
| Beam: |
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| Draught: | 8 ft (2.4 m) |
| Installed power: | 1,800 ihp (1,340 kW) (Belvoir group) or 2,200 ihp (1,640 kW) (Aberdare group) |
| Propulsion: | |
| Speed: | 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph) |
| Range: | 1,500 nmi (2,780 km; 1,730 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
| Complement: | 74 |
| Armament: |
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The Hunt-class minesweeper was a class of minesweeping sloop built between 1916 and 1919 for the Royal Navy. They were built in two discrete groups, the earlier Belvoir group designed by the Ailsa Shipbuilding Company and the subsequent (and slightly larger) Aberdare group designed by the Admiralty. They were classed as Fleet Minesweeping Sloops, that is ships intended to clear open water. The Belvoir group were named after British fox hunts. Those of the Aberdare group were originally named after coastal towns, watering places and fishing ports, some of which happened to be hunts by coincidence. However, all were soon renamed after inland locations to prevent confusion caused by the misunderstanding of signals and orders.
These ships had twin screws and had forced-draught coal burning boilers, that is they burned pulverised coal in an artificially augmented airstream. One consequence of this was that they produced a lot of smoke, so much so that they were more usually referred to as Smokey Joes. Another was that if they were fed anything other than the Welsh Steam Coal they were designed for then the fuel consumption was enormous—one ship was bunkered with soft brown Natal coal and burnt 20 tons in a single day.
They had a shallow draught (8 feet, 2.43 metres). Armament was one QF 4 in (100 mm) gun forward and a QF 12 pounder aft, plus two twin 0.303 inch machine guns. They were equipped for sweeping with Oropesa floats only, that is to cut the cables of moored mines.
Six ships were completed as survey vessels, and the majority of the Aberdare group arrived too late to see service during the First World War. 35 were cancelled after the armistice. Interwar, eight were sold out of service, one was sold to Siam, one was converted to an RNVR drillship and 52 were scrapped. The majority of the remainder spent the period from 1919 to 1939 in reserve around the world, with Malta and Singapore having most of them, so that on the outbreak of World War II there were still 27 available for service, to which a further two were requisitioned from mercantile service.
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