Uruguay moored at Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires
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History | |
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Argentina | |
Name: | Uruguay |
Namesake: | Schooner ARA Uruguay |
Owner: | Argentine Navy |
Ordered: | 1872 |
Builder: | Laird Brothers, Birkenhead, England |
Launched: | 6 March 1874 |
Commissioned: | 5 July 1874 |
Decommissioned: | 1926 |
Status: | Decommissioned, moored as museum ship at Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires |
Coordinates: | 34°36′32.23″S 58°21′56.31″W / 34.6089528°S 58.3656417°WCoordinates: 34°36′32.23″S 58°21′56.31″W / 34.6089528°S 58.3656417°W |
General characteristics | |
Class and type: | Steam gunboat with auxiliary sails |
Displacement: | 550 metric tons (540 long tons) |
Length: | 46.36 m (152.1 ft) |
Beam: | 7.63 m (25.0 ft) |
Draft: | 3.5 m (11 ft) |
Propulsion: | Steam, 3-cylinder compound |
Sail plan: | Barque |
Speed: |
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Range: | 1,500 nmi (2,800 km) |
Armament: |
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The corbeta (corvette) ARA Uruguay, built in England, is the largest ship afloat of its age in the Armada de la República Argentina (Argentine Navy), with more than 140 years passed since its commissioning in September 1874. The last of the legendary squadron of President Sarmiento, the Uruguay took part in revolutions, ransoms, expeditions, rescues, and was even floating headquarters of the Navy School. During its operational history 1874–1926 the Uruguay has served as a gunboat, school ship, expedition support ship, Antarctic rescue ship, fisheries base supply ship, and hydrographic survey vessel, and is now a museum ship in Buenos Aires. This ship may be the oldest in South America having been built in 1874 at Laird Bros. (now Cammell Laird) shipyard of Birkenhead, England, at a cost of £32,000. This ship is rigged to a barque sailplan (three masts, two of which have cross spars). The ship's steel hull is lined in teak.
The ship's namesake is an earlier Argentine Navy schooner, a seven-gun combatant in the Battle of Juncal, 1827.
Originally built as a gunboat, the ship was soon to be used as a training ship.
After an episode known as the "Mutiny of the Overcoats" ("el Motín de los Gabanes" de Zárate) affected the continuity of studies in the emerging Naval Academy, the ship became a floating headquarters for naval training. In 1879, the gunboat, anchored in Buenos Aires, witnessed the graduation of the academy's first class of Naval Officers.