Portuguese seaplane carrier

[DG_Alpha]

A really interesting ship. Good work!

[WhyMe]

Thanks, DG_Alpha.

A question to everyone. Would this ship make a decent submarine tender/command ship and what would it take to convert it to one? I'd appreciate any ideas and suggestions.

[denodon]

I'd say a submarine tender is plausible if the space designed for use as a hangar was adapted instead to carry spare torpedoes and maintenance equipment for submarines as well as supplies. For that role an additional heavy crane may be beneficial to allow for the vessel to service two submarines at once if required.

[Thiel]

I can't see why not. You'll have plenty of room for stores and workshops once the planes are gone and it's already designed to handle the extra crew.

[Portsmouth Bill]

Terrific And yes, similar to the Albatross in concept

[t72ural]

Wow! This is one interesting ship. I'd read that Portugal was planning on building a seaplane carrier, but never that it had an entire plan to modernize its navy. Mind posting some details about it here?

[eswube]

@t72ural

Quote from the Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922-1946, London 1980, p. 396.

In 1922 it (the Portuguese Navy) consisted largely of old an obsolete vessels but in 1930 a ten-year Programme for teh provision of new ships to revitalise the fleet was authorised. Two destroyers were ordered from Yarrow and 3 more, of the same design, were laid down in the Naval Yard at Lisbon together with 2 sloops (Nunes and Lisboa); a 5110t seaplane tender (to be named Sacadura Cabral), 4 submarines and 2 sloops were ordered from Italy, and 2 more sloops (Velho and Zarco) from the British firm Hawthorn Leslie. In 1931, however, the Italian orders were cancelled, the contract for the two sloops (the Albuquerque class) being transferred to Hawthorn Leslie and that for the submarines replaced by an order for 3 boats (the Delfin class) with Vickers-Armstrong (the seaplane tender was not re-ordered while the original submarine contracts were later taken over by the Italian Government and the 4 vessels completed for the Italian Navy). These ships entered service during 1933-36 and formed the main strength of the Portuguese Navy until the end of the 1940s when the Government began purchasing foreign vessels to strengthen the fleet.

[amg]

very interesting post indeed

however, as someone curious regarding portuguese naval aviation, I had the ideia that the seaplane tender we where looking for was something like this (or based on this project/concept)
http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

best regards

ps: this is my first post on this forum.
Salutations to everybody