HMS Dee
The third ship to bear this name. She was the first paddle steamer ordered for the Royal Navy, designed to carry a significant armament. She was built with engines made by Maudslay, Sons and Field. A model of the engine is in the Science Museum [1]
c.1830 According to James Nasmyth in his autobiography: "Mr. Maudsley had next a pair of 200 horse-power marine engines put in hand. His sons and partners were rather opposed to so expensive a piece of work being undertaken without an order. At that time such a power as 200 horse nominal was scarcely thought of; and the Admiralty Board were very cautious in ordering marine engines of any sort. Nevertheless, the engines were proceeded with and perfected. They formed a noble object in the great erecting shop. They embodied in every detail all Mr. Maudsley's latest improvements. In fact the work was the sum total of the great master's inventions and adaptations in marine engines. The Admiralty at last secured them for the purpose of being placed in a very fine vessel, the Dee, then in course of construction. Mr. Maudsley was so much pleased with the result that he had a very beautiful model made of the engines; and finding that I had some artistic skill as a draughtsman, he set me to work to make a complete perspective drawing of them as they stood all perfect in the erecting-shop. This was a piece of work entirely to my taste. In due time I completed a graphic portrait of these noble engines, treated, I hope, in an artistic spirit. Indeed, such a class of drawing was rarely to be had from an engineering draughtsman. Mere geometrical drawing could not give a proper idea, as a whole, of so grand a piece of mechanism. It required something of the artistic spirit to fairly represent it. At all events my performance won the entire approval of my master.
1832 Built at the Royal Dockyard, Woolwich. Was one of the vessels involved in the Dutch harbour blockades.
1842 Converted to troopship
1854 Converted to storeship located at Portsmouth
1854 Recommissioned
1855 Became a troopship.
1856 HMS Dee and the yacht Black Eagle were used in a trial of J. Wethered's apparatus for superheated steam. This produced an economy of fuel of 18% in Black Eagle, and 31% in Dee.
1860 Discussion at the Inst of Civil Engineers on the work extracted from steam in the engines of the Dee.
1866 Received a new 220 nominal horsepower engine.
1868 Used as a storeship.
1871 Broken up at Sheerness.
See Also
Sources of Information
- Autobiography of James Nasmyth, with additions by Samuel Smiles, p.173
- [2] Wikipedia