The Gold Funnel Fleet, Victoria's Colonial Navy

[KimWerner]

I have to second CraigH and Hood. She is just beautiful

[RegiaMarina1939]

Excellent work on this thread Rodondo!

[eswube]

Very nice drawing indeed.

[smurf]

Hobart Town Courier
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2505044
The item bottom left may be of interest.
Length 185ft is 20ft more than your Australian Sketcher figure.

I've copied your drawing of Victoria, scaled it down 165/185 and the result fits between the stem at waterline and the rudder post,
so I think it's 185ft overall, 165ft between perpendiculars.

[Rodondo]

Hi Smurf,

I've given it a read but I'm doubting the accuracy of the article as the figures for draft are quite on the low side. The Australian Sketcher figure is 176ft which I worked out to mean hull length, the ship is 186ft in length overall from the transom to the figure-head though. Be it as it may, I won't submit this to the archive till the matter is sorted.

[smurf]

Oooops! Where I got 165ft from I don't know. I'm getting old!
However, I don't see why you think a mean draft of about 10'6 is low.
Taking 175ft as waterline length, the underwater block volume is 175x28x10.5 = 51450cu ft
so that is 51450*62.5/2240 = about 1440 tons displaced
Displacement is given as 580tons full load, so the block coefficient would be 580/1440 = 0.4 which is quite low, but not unreasonable for a small warship. It would be larger with a deeper draft, but it doesn't need to be to support 580tons.

[Rodondo]

She should be 167ft bp, but as for the draft 12.5ft makes more sense for a sailing craft with a large rig and narrow hull, as for the displacement, I'm pretty certain the 580t is a builder's measurement, somewhere between 800-900t is probably the actual displacement

[smurf]

Length to beam 185/28ft = 6.6 or (better for stability considerations) 170waterline/28 = 6.0 is hardly a narrow hull.
To improve stability the usual measure adopted was to increase beam.
What displacements do you mean by "a builder's measurement" and "actual"? Light, legend, normal, full load?
Why, when a detailed contemporary account gives draughts fore and aft at full load, do you want a different one?
Note that though the retrieved article is from the Hobart Courier, it is credited to the Melbourne Argus in Victoria, whose data may well have relied on the Government Gazette. Why should their reported data be wrong?

[smurf]

You might like to consider the Cadmus class as a comparator
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmus-class_sloop
Espiegle aka Cadmus class 1903, 1070tons, 210ft oa, 185ft pp, beam 33ft, draught 11.25ft. 6x4in, 1400ihp, 13 knots, 3000nmi range
Complement 150. c.£80,000
Sails (except Espiegle herself, none) unused after 1904.
Yards removed 1914.

[Rodondo]

Found nothing mentioning Victoria's size in the government gazettes, only provisions and pay scales.

I'm assuming it's a measurement of volume rather than weight, burthen or net.

I found that the Arrow Class Despatch Vessels being a suitable comparison as they were made year and a half before dimensions being only marginally smaller and all in similar proportions, also it was developed into another class of vessels, indicating some satisifaction with repeating the design.

Also I found this, I can't find a source for either other than they come from two seperate books