A British Sailor's Woolie of a Five-masted Ironclad (1870)

Item 1904

Location of Origin: England

Medium/Materials: Wool

Dimensions: 24 inches high x 28 inches

Primary Classification: All Works of Art By Theme : Interest Type : Nautical / Marine

Secondary Classification: Decorative Arts and Furniture : Tapestries, Woolworks, Silkworks : Small

Expertise: Minotaur class ironclad. The Minotaur class battleships were essentially enlarged versions of HMS Achilles with heavier armament and armour, and more powerful engines. The three vessels of the class - HMS Minotaur, HMS Agincourt and HMS Northumberland were designed with a full-length strake of armour along the side to provide protection to all guns on the main deck. This necessitated an increase in length over HMS Achilles, and resulted in the class being the largest armoured ships ever to be propelled by a single screw. All three ships took so long to complete after being laid down - Agincourt five years and four months, Minotaur seven years and three months, Northumberland seven years almost to the day - that by the time that they became operational their armament and armour was verging on the obsolescent, barely justifying their excessive initial cost or the resources deployed for subsequent alterations. The ships of this class were unique among ironclad warships in possessing on completion five masts, named fore-, second-, main-, fourth- and mizzen. They were the first British iron-hulled warships whose carrying capacity exceeded the weight of their hulls; 5,232 tons v 5,043 tons. In the original design it had been intended to mount forty Armstrong 100-pounder breech-loader cannon on the main deck, with ten more on pivot mountings on the upper deck. The failure of these guns in service led to a complete re-evaluation of the armament fit of these ships, with a significant concomitant delay in the arming of the whole class. The ships were initially armed with a combination of 9-inch muzzle-loading rifles on metal carriages made to the design of Admiral Sir Percy Scott, and 7-inch muzzle-loading rifles on rope-worked carriages. In a moderate swell these 7-inch guns were virtually unworkable, making the Minotaurs both the largest and the worst armed of the Victorian battleships. When re-armed it was necessary, in order to accommodate the fewer but larger guns, to enlarge every alternate gun-port, including armour, iron backing and teak backing, using drills and cold chisels. The Minotaurs were poor sailors, never exceeding a speed under sail of about 9.5 knots with all sail set and a favourable wind. They were, in spite of the number of masts they exhibited, the most sluggish of all British ironclads under sail. They were regarded as good sea-boats, and were considered to be among the steadiest ships in the battle-fleet. They were slow in manoeuvre under hand-steering, but were regarded as good after steam steering was fitted.

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