HMS ''Seahorse'' was a

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

fleet tug A tugboat or tug is a marine vessel that manoeuvres other vessels by pushing or pulling them, with direct contact or a tow line. These boats typically tug ships in circumstances where they cannot or should not move under their own power, such ...

, tender and survey ship built in 1880. She served until the end of the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and was subsequently sold for commercial service in Spain.

Description

HMS ''Seahorse'' was designed and built by

Laird Brothers Cammell Laird is a British shipbuilding company. It was formed from the merger of Laird Brothers of Birkenhead and Johnson Cammell & Co of Sheffield at the turn of the twentieth century. The company also built railway rolling stock until 1929, ...

Birkenhead Birkenhead () is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liverpool. It lies within the Historic counties of England, historic co ...

for the Royal Navy as a fast deep-sea tug, suitable for handling their new classes of

ironclad warship An ironclad was a steam-propelled warship protected by steel or iron armor constructed from 1859 to the early 1890s. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells. The firs ...

. In addition she was equipped for deployment as a fleet tender and

despatch vessel Dispatch boats were small boats, and sometimes large ships, tasked to carry military dispatches from ship to ship or from ship to shore or, in some cases from shore to shore. Dispatch boats were employed when other means of transmitting a message w ...

. Steel was used in both the engines and shafts and, in the form of

Siemens-Martin An open-hearth furnace or open hearth furnace is any of several kinds of industrial furnace in which excess carbon and other impurities are burnt out of pig iron to produce steel. Because steel is difficult to manufacture owing to its high mel ...

steel from the Landore Steel Company, for the hull and upperworks. ''Seahorses

displacement Displacement may refer to: Physical sciences Mathematics and physics *Displacement (geometry), is the difference between the final and initial position of a point trajectory (for instance, the center of mass of a moving object). The actual path ...

was 670 tons, and dimensions

length between perpendiculars Length between perpendiculars (often abbreviated as p/p, p.p., pp, LPP, LBP or Length BPP) is the length of a ship along the summer load line from the forward surface of the stem, or main bow perpendicular member, to the after surface of the ste ...

length overall Length overall (LOA, o/a, o.a. or oa) is the maximum length of a vessel's hull measured parallel to the waterline. This length is important while docking the ship. It is the most commonly used way of expressing the size of a ship, and is also ...

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Radio beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially lo ...

and with draught. She was powered by a pair of

compound steam engine A compound steam engine unit is a type of steam engine where steam is expanded in two or more stages. A typical arrangement for a compound engine is that the steam is first expanded in a high-pressure (HP) cylinder, then having given up heat ...

s totalling 1100 ihp driving twin screws. HMS Howe being towed into Emsenanda de la Malata by HMS Seahorse with salvage steamers alongside RMG BHC3410 01

HMS Howe being towed into Emsenanda de la Malata by HMS Seahorse with salvage steamers alongside RMG BHC3410 01

Service history

Based at Portsmouth, as well as a fleet tug, ''Seahorse'' served in a variety of roles, including survey ship, and was often described as a gunboat or "special service vessel". During the

Anglo-Egyptian War The British conquest of Egypt, also known as the Anglo-Egyptian War (), occurred in 1882 between Egyptian and Sudanese forces under Ahmed ‘Urabi and the United Kingdom. It ended a nationalist uprising against the Khedive Tewfik Pasha. It ...

of 1882 ''Seahorse'' was additionally equipped with

gatling gun The Gatling gun is a rapid-firing multiple-barrel firearm invented in 1861 by Richard Jordan Gatling of North Carolina. It is an early machine gun and a forerunner of the modern electric motor-driven rotary cannon. The Gatling gun's operatio ...

s and stationed at

Port Said Port Said ( , , ) is a port city that lies in the northeast Egypt extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, straddling the west bank of the northern mouth of the Suez Canal. The city is the capital city, capital of the Port S ...

for towing and patrol duties in the

Suez Canal The Suez Canal (; , ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, Indo-Mediterranean, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest ...

. Amongst her salvage jobs was the battleship HMS ''Howe'', which stranded on a shoal off

Ferrol, Spain Ferrol (, ) is a city in the province of A Coruña in Galicia, Spain, located in the Rías Altas, in the vicinity of Strabo's Cape Nerium (modern-day Cape Prior). According to the 2021 census, the city had a population of 64,785, making it the ...

in November 1892 and could be refloated only five months later. During the First World War she continued to be based at Portsmouth where she was used as a fleet tug, and later a rescue tug.

Commercial service

On 1 May 1920 ''Seahorse'' was disposed of by the Admiralty to Crichton Thompson & Co Ltd, and resold to Arsenio Sanjurjo Igual of

Santander, Spain Santander ( , ; ) is the capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Cantabria, Spain. It has a population of 172,000 (2017). It is a port city located in the northern coast of the Iberian Peninsula, facing the Cantab ...

, where she was renamed ''Chita''. She changed hands twice at Santander, first to Luis Liaño in 1925 and then to Nicolas Pardo y Pardo in 1928. She was finally broken up at Santander in 1933.

Notes

References

External links

The history of tug ''Chita''
(in Spanish) 1880 ships Victorian-era auxiliary ships of the United Kingdom World War I auxiliary ships of the United Kingdom Steamships of Spain {{UK-mil-ship-stub