HMS Rattler (1843)

The steam frigate HMS Rattler was the first screw steamer of the British Admiralty in 1845 and won a historic match against the Raddampffregatte HMS Alecto.

History

The Rattler was built in 1843 under the sponsorship of Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria, from the shipyard Sheerness Dockyard according to the plans of the engineer Francis Pettit Smith as a test ship for the British Admiralty to test the capability of the ship's propeller. On April 3, 1845 kicked the finished end of 1839, large and equally strong Raddampffregatte Alecto at a competition to find out which ship propulsion is the more powerful. First, both ships in the North Sea came to several races, including on a windless day more than 100 nautical miles, against each other, from which emerged the Rattler as the clear winner. Subsequently, the two steam frigates were stern to stern moored to each other to move to a signal at full strength against each other. Here, too, was the Rattler the clear winner, because they dragged the Alecto with about 2.5 knots on their tail in her direction.

In retrospect, this competition has however made out to be effective public promotional event for the new drive technology, as the British Admiralty already knew at that point to the superiority of the new drive and other propeller-driven ships were already ordered. Already in the same year, the findings from the experiments were used with the Rattler in the construction of the screw steamer Dwarf.

The Rattler served until 1856 for the Royal Navy and was then discontinued.