HMS Viper (1899)
From SpottingWorld, the Hub for the SpottingWorld network...
| HMS Viper HMS Viper | |
| Career (UK) |  |
|---|---|
| Name: | HMS Viper |
| Builder: | Hawthorn Leslie and Company |
| Launched: | 6 September 1899 |
| Fate: | Struck rocks near Alderney, 3 August 1901 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 344 long tons (350 t) |
| Length: | 210 ft (64 m) |
| Beam: | 21 ft (6.4 m) |
| Draught: | 7 ft (2.1 m) |
| Propulsion: | Parsons turbines, 10,000 ihp (7,457 kW) |
| Speed: | 36.5 knots (67.6 km/h; 42.0 mph) |
| Complement: | 68 |
| Armament: |
• 1 × 12 pounder gun • 5 × 6 pounder guns • 2 × torpedo tubes |
HMS Viper was a Viper-class Torpedo Boat Destroyer (TBD) built for the British Royal Navy in 1899 by Hawthorn Leslie and Company at Hebburn on the River Tyne.
It was notable for being one of the first warships to use steam turbine propulsion, manufactured by Parsons Marine. There were four shafts, with two propellers on each, one inboard and one outboard of the shaft A-bracket.
Viper and another turbine-powered ship, the Vickers special-type HMS Cobra were both lost to accidents in 1901: Viper foundered on rocks in fog during naval manoeuvres near Alderney on 3 August 1901, while Cobra broke her back in a storm in the North Sea on 18 September 1901. Since then the Royal Navy has not used snake names for destroyers.
References
- Lyon, David (1996). The First Destroyers. ISBN 1-84067-364-8.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
.jpg){kind=link}