Amethyst-class corvette

HMS Diamond in Farm Cove, Sydney c. 1887
Class overview
Name	Amethyst class
Builders	Devonport Dockyard, Sheerness Dockyard
Operators	Royal Navy
Preceded by	Volage class
Succeeded by	HMS Rover
Built	1871–75
Completed	5
Scrapped	5
General characteristics (as built)
Type	Wooden screw corvette
Displacement	1,934 long tons (1,965 t)
Tons burthen	1,405 bm
Length	220 ft (67.1 m) (p/p)
Beam	37 ft (11.3 m)
Draught	18 ft (5.5 m)
Installed power	2,031–2,364 ihp (1,515–1,763 kW)
Propulsion	1 shaft 1 × 2-cylinder compound expansion steam engine 6 cylindrical boilers
Sail plan	Ship rig
Speed	12–13 knots (22–24 km/h; 14–15 mph)
Range	2,060–2,500 nmi (3,820–4,630 km; 2,370–2,880 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement	225
Armament	14 × 64-pounder 71-cwt or 64-cwt rifled muzzle-loading (RML) guns

The Amethyst-class corvettes were a class of the last wooden warships to be built for the British Royal Navy; each was built at a Royal Dockyard. Three were ordered under the 1871–72 Programme and two under the 1872–73 Programme. Built in the early and middle 1870s, they mostly served overseas and were retired early as they were regarded as hopelessly obsolete by the late 1880s. The lead ship of the class, HMS Amethyst, served alongside HMS Shah in the action against the Peruvian warship Huáscar on 29th May 1877.

Unlike earlier wooden corvettes in the Navy, the Amethyst class corvettes had clipper bows (like the earlier Amazon Class sloops), while the last two had frigate sterns. All were initially ship-rigged (except for Encounter, which was barque-rigged), but after their first commission the Modeste, Diamond and Sapphire (but not Amethyst) were re-rigged as barques. They were completed with fourteen 64-pdr guns, of which twelve were truck-mounted on the broadsides and two were on rotating slides as bow and stern chasers. The guns were 64 cwt in the first three ships and 71 cwt in the last two.