HMS Megaera (1849)
| HMS Megaera in 1869 HMS Megaera in 1869 | |
| Career (UK) |  |
|---|---|
| Name: | HMS Megaera |
| Builder: | William Fairbairn |
| Launched: | 22 May 1849 |
| Fate: | Wrecked 16 June 1871 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Frigate |
| Displacement: | 2,025 long tons (2,057 t) |
| Length: | 207 ft (63 m) |
| Beam: | 37 ft 8 in (11.48 m) |
| Draught: | 26 ft 3 in (8.00 m) |
| Propulsion: |
Seawards engine 1 × screw |
HMS Megaera was originally constructed as an iron screw frigate for the Royal Navy, and was one of the last and largest ships built by William Fairbairn's Millwall shipyard.
Launched on 22 May 1849, HMS Megaera was one of the first iron ships ordered by the Royal Navy. She was named after the mythological figure Megaera, one of the Erinyes (or Furies, in Roman mythology).
The Admiralty was at the time sceptical about iron ships in general and this slow ship did nothing to change its mind. Megaera never saw service as a frigate, the Admiralty instead ordering her to be converted to a troopship and storeship. On her maiden voyage as a troopship on 7 June 1851, she broke down and had to be towed back to port. Megaera was refitted and sailed again, ordered to use her sails to conserve coal. She became an operational ship and made several voyages to the Crimea but was not well liked.
Shipwreck
In 1871, Megaera was assigned to transport Royal Navy recruits to Australia to replace crewmembers on Blanche and Rosario and departed from England on 22 February 1871. She suffered damage in a storm and put in at Queenstown, Ireland, for repairs. The ship's officers complained that the vessel was overloaded with baggage and riding too low in the water; there was an article in The Times, questions were asked in the House of Commons and eventually an inspection resulted in 127 tons of cargo being removed.
On 28 May 1871, Megaera departed Simonstown, South Africa. Aboard her were 42 officers, 180 sailors, and 67 recruits en route to Australia. On 9 June, sailors discovered 17 in (43 cm) of water present in the hold, the ship's hull having sprung a leak. Use of the pumps lowered the level to 13 in (33 cm) and the leak was found. Unfortunately it was a serious one, and the captain — Arthur Thomas Thrupp — altered course on 15 June for the nearest land, which was the uninhabited St. Paul Island.
On 17 June, they anchored at St. Paul in 84 ft (26 m) of water and a diver was sent to inspect the damage. However, the anchor cable broke and they were obliged to take the diver back on board before he could carry out any work. After she snapped a second anchor cable, Megaera's divers were finally able to make an inspection. After hearing reports from the divers and the opinions of the ship's engineers regarding the extensive corrosion of the iron plates of the ship's hull, Captain Thrupp announced that Megaera would sail no further and that they were shipwrecked on the island of St. Paul. The sailors and Royal Marines burst into applause.
Thrupp beached the ship and it was not completely abandoned for 11 days, when Captain Thrupp declared the dangerous wreckage to be off-limits. Two-thirds of the cargo had by then been unloaded.
On 16 July, Captain Visier of the Dutch vessel Aurora spotted the flagpole which Megaera's crew had erected and Lieutenant Lewis Jones sailed with her to Surabaya, Java, which they reached on 2 August. He despatched telegrams to the British Consul in Batavia (now Jakarta) and to the Royal Navy Commodore in Hong Kong, who ordered Rinaldo to sail to the rescue.
On 7 August, a second Dutch ship took five men from St. Paul Island, and on the same day the captain of the British clipper Mountain Laurel asked to be paid to rescue the crew of Megaera, claiming that he would have to jettison his cargo to accommodate so many people. Captain Thrupp declined this offer and on 26 August Lieutenant Jones arrived on the Oberon with supplies. On 29 August, Malacca and Rinaldo arrived and took off the remaining survivors of the shipwreck.
Captain Thrupp and his crew subsequently faced a court martial in November 1871 at Plymouth and a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into the loss of the ship. Thrupp was subsequently honourably acquitted when the court decided that the beaching of the ship was perfectly justifiable.
References
- Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: the complete record of all fighting ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham. ISBN 9781861762818. OCLC 67375475.
- "LOSS OF THE MEGAERA.; Official Dispatches Received at the British Admiralty" (PDF), New York Times, October 9, 1871, http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9A01E5DF1439E43BBC4153DFB667838A669FDE
- Hayward, R.A. (1978). The Story and Scandal of HMS Megaera. Moorland Publishing. ISBN 9780903485302.
- Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Inquire Into the Case of H.M. S. "Megaera;" Together with the Minutes of Evidence and Appendix. London, Houses of Parliament. 1872.
.jpg){kind=link}
_at_St_Paul_Island.jpg){kind=link}