The launch of HMS Warrior at the Thames Ironworks, Blackwall. © NMM
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| The launch of HMS Warrior at the Thames Ironworks, Blackwall. © NMM |
The grease on the slipways had frozen, despite the burning braziers placed alongside. Extra tugs and hydraulic rams pulled her while hundreds of men ran from side to side on her upper deck, trying to rock her free. After 20 minutes, Warrior finally eased down the slipway.
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| HMS Warrior, designed by Isaac Watts. © NMM |
She boasted 23 cannon:
Isaac Watts, the designer of Warrior, decided to place the guns on a single long gun-deck. This broke with the traditional idea of several gun-decks. To protect the guns from bombardment by enemy ships, Watts housed the guns inside an armoured compartment. The compartment was sealed at each end with strong bulkheads and doorways.
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| Model of HMS Warrior. © NMM |
The combination of iron hull, armour-plate, breech-loading guns and powerful steam screw propulsion meant that she could outrun and outgun any ship afloat.
Charles Dickens called her, 'A black vicious ugly customer as ever I saw, whale-like in size, and with as terrible a row of incisor teeth as ever closed on a French frigate'. Another commentator called the ship, 'a black snake among rabbits'.
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| The main deck of HMS Warrior. © NMM |
The view shown here is of her gun-deck, which was also the mess for most of the 700 men. This was unusual - the mess was usually placed one deck lower. The reason was to make the ship more stable by reducing the number of decks.
Combining steam and sail
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| HMS Warrior under full sail, c. 1860. © NMM |
These were capable of holding more than 4000 square metres (almost 50,000 square feet) of sail.
On one occasion, Warrior reached a speed of more than 17 knots with combined steam and sails, which was an amazing feat for that time. However, sails remained the main method of propulsion.
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| The Warrior at Bermuda Floating Dry-dock, 1869. © NMM |
The Warrior's boilers and steam engine were inefficient because they operated at low pressure and consumed large amounts of coal. This meant that mechanical propulsion was used only when absolutely necessary.
The large twin-bladed propeller created a lot of drag. This slowed the ship down when Warrior was under sail alone. The funnels also affected the aerodynamics of the sails.
To overcome these problems the propeller was designed to be lifted out of the water when the ship was under sail and the funnels were designed to be telescopic. They could be lowered and raised by means of a hand-operated crank.