HMS ''Barnstaple'' was a
Hunt-class minesweeper
A minesweeper is a small warship designed to remove or detonate naval mines. Using various mechanisms intended to counter the threat posed by naval mines, minesweepers keep waterways clear for safe shipping.
History
The earliest known usage of ...
built for the
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 ...
during
World War I
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 ...
.
Design and description
The ''Aberdare'' sub-class were enlarged versions of the original Hunt-class ships with a more powerful armament. The ships displaced at normal load
[ and at ]full load
The displacement or displacement tonnage of a ship is its weight. As the term indicates, it is measured indirectly, using Archimedes' principle, by first calculating the volume of water displaced by the ship, then converting that value into weig ...
.[Lenton, p. 250] They measured long 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 u ...
with a 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 ...
of and a draught of . The ships' complement consisted of 74 officers and ratings.[Preston, p. 98]
The ships had two vertical triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one shaft using steam provided by two Yarrow boiler
Yarrow boilers are an important class of high-pressure water-tube boilers. They were developed by
Yarrow Shipbuilders, Yarrow & Co. (London), Shipbuilders and Engineers and were widely used on ships, particularly warships.
The Yarrow boiler desi ...
s. The engines produced a total of and gave a maximum speed of . They carried a maximum of of coal[ which gave them a range of at .][Cocker, p. 76]
The ''Aberdare'' sub-class was armed with a quick-firing (QF) gun forward of the bridge
A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...
and a QF twelve-pounder (3-inch (76.2 mm)) anti-aircraft gun
Anti-aircraft warfare (AAW) is the counter to aerial warfare and includes "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It encompasses surface-based, subsurface ( submarine-launched), and air-ba ...
aft.[ Some ships were fitted with QF six-pounder () Hotchkiss guns or QF three-pounder () Hotchkiss guns in lieu of the twelve-pounder.][
]
Construction and career
''Barnstaple'', the first ship of her name in the Royal Navy, was built by the Ardrossan Dry Dock & Shipbuilding Company at their shipyard
A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are shipbuilding, built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Compared to shipyards, which are sometimes m ...
in Ardrossan
Ardrossan (; ) is a town on the North Ayrshire coast in southwestern Scotland. The town has a population of 10,670 and forms part of a conurbation with Saltcoats and Stevenston known as the 'Three Towns#Scotland, Three Towns'. Ardrossan is loca ...
. The ship was launched on 20 March 1919. She was sold on 1 December 1921. She served as '' Lady Cynthia'' after major modifications as a coastal steamship with the Union Steamship Company of British Columbia, Canada from 1925 to 1957.[Colledge, Warlow & Bush, p. 36]
See also
* Barnstaple
Barnstaple ( or ) is a river-port town and civil parish in the North Devon district of Devon, England. The town lies at the River Taw's lowest crossing point before the Bristol Channel. From the 14th century, it was licensed to export wool from ...
Citations
Bibliography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Barnstaple
Hunt-class minesweepers (1916)
Royal Navy ship names
1919 ships