Six ''Earnest''-class destroyers served with the
Royal Navy: , , , , and . These ships were all built by
Cammell Laird
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, ...
and were part of the class of 'thirty knotters'.
Concern about the higher speeds of foreign boats had prompted to Admiralty to order new destroyers capable of , rather than the requirement which had been standard. The boats were not able to make this speed in bad weather, where they were usually wet and uncomfortable with cramped crew quarters, but they proved their toughness in serving through
World War I, despite being twenty years old. Thanks to their watertight bulkheads, their thin plating and light structure they were able to take a great deal of damage and remain afloat, although their plates buckled easily, affecting their handling.
The ships were fitted with
Normand boilers which generated around . They were armed with the standard 12-pounder gun and two
torpedo tubes and carried a complement of 63 officers and
ratings.
In 1913 the ''Ernest'' class, along with all other surviving "30 knotter" vessels with 4 funnels, were classified by the Admiralty as the
B-class to provide some system to the
naming of HM destroyers (at the same time, the 3-funnelled, "30 knotters" became the
C-class and the 2-funnelled ships the
D-class).
References
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Destroyer classes
Ship classes of the Royal Navy
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