HMS Flying Fish (1873)

HMS Flying Fish
History
Name:	HMS Flying Fish
Namesake:	Flying Fish
Builder:	Chatham Dockyard
Laid down:	1872
Launched:	27 November 1873
Completed:	June 1874
Decommissioned:	1886
Renamed:	From HMS Daring, 14 January 1873
Reclassified:	As survey ship, 1878
Fate:	Sold for scrap, December 1888
General characteristics
Class and type:	Fantome-class sloop
Displacement:	949 long tons (964 t)
Tons burthen:	727 bm
Length:	160 ft (48.8 m) (p/p)
Beam:	31 ft 4 in (9.6 m)
Draught:	14 ft (4.3 m)
Depth:	15 ft 6 in (4.7 m)
Installed power:	836 ihp (623 kW)
Propulsion:	1 shaft 1 × 2-cylinder horizontal compound expansion steam engine 3 × cylindrical boilers
Sail plan:	Barque rig
Speed:	10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Range:	1,000 nmi (1,900 km; 1,200 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement:	125
Armament:	2 × 7-inch rifled muzzle-loading guns 2 × 6.3-inch 64-pounder rifled muzzle-loading guns

HMS Flying Fish was a Fantome-class sloop of the Royal Navy, built at Chatham Dockyard and launched on 27 November 1873.^[1] Originally intended to be named Daring, she was renamed Flying Fish before launch on 14 January 1873.

She commenced service with the East Indies Station in 1874 in the suppression of the slave trade off the East African coast.^[1] She paid off in 1878 for conversion to a survey vessel and in 1880 commenced hydrographic surveys in the East Indies. In December 1880 she arrived in Hong Kong to commence surveying duties in East Asia (on the China Station) under the command of Richard F Hoskyn.^[2] In November 1881, a party of sailors from the ship formed an honour guard for George French, Chief Justice of the British Supreme Court for China and Japan who had died in Kobe.^[3] During the Russian war scare of 1885 she was rearmed and rejoined fleet duties, however in 1886, she reverted to survey duties on the Australia Station.^[1] She left the Australia Station later in 1886 and returned to England where she paid off. She was sold in 1888.^[1]

Flying Fish Cove on Christmas Island is named after her.

Notes

1. Bastock 1988, pp. 90–100.
2. North China Herald, December 16, 1880, p555. The NCH gave Hoskyn's rank as Commander, however, the Navy List for 1881 lists him as a Lieutenant.
3. North China Herald, November 29, 1881, p567

Bibliography

• Ballard, G. A. (1939). "British Sloops of 1875: The Smaller Composite Type". Mariner's Mirror. Cambridge, UK: Society for Nautical Research. 25 (April): 151–61.
• Bastock, John (1988), Ships on the Australia Station, Child & Associates Publishing Pty Ltd; Frenchs Forest, Australia. ISBN 0-86777-348-0
• Chesneau, Roger; Kolesnik, Eugene M., eds. (1979). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. Greenwich, UK: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-8317-0302-4.
• Winfield, Rif & Lyon, David (2004). The Sail and Steam Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815–1889. London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-032-6. OCLC 52620555.