Spanish ironclad Arapiles
 Arapiles at anchor
| |
| History | |
|---|---|
.svg){kind=small} Spain | |
| Name | Arapiles |
| Namesake | Battle of Salamanca |
| Builder | Green, Blackwall, London |
| Laid down | June 1861 |
| Launched | 17 October 1864 |
| Completed | 1865 |
| Commissioned | 1868 |
| Stricken | 1879 |
| Fate | Scrapped, 1883 |
| General characteristics (as built) | |
| Type | Broadside ironclad |
| Displacement | 3,441 long tons (3,496 t) |
| Length | 280 ft (85.3 m) |
| Beam | 52 ft 2 in (15.9 m) |
| Draft | 17 ft (5.2 m) |
| Installed power | 2,400 ihp (1,800 kW) |
| Propulsion |
|
| Sail plan | Ship rig |
| Speed | about 8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph) |
| Complement | 537 |
| Armament |
|
| Armor | |
The Spanish ironclad Arapiles was a wooden-hulled
hulked in 1879 and the poor condition of her hull forced her reconstruction to be cancelled in 1882. Arapiles was scrapped
a year or two later.
Description
Arapiles was 280 feet (85.3 m) long at the
ship rigged.[2]
The ship was armed with two
Armstrong 10-inch (254 mm) and five 8-inch (203 mm) rifled muzzle-loading guns as well as ten 68-pounder smoothbore guns.[3] Sources differ on the exact thicknesses and extent of her wrought-iron armor, but agree that it ranged from three to five inches (76 to 127 mm) in thickness.[2]
Construction and career
floating dry dock of Cartagena, Spain
Arapiles, named for the hills at the
launched on 17 October 1864 and completed the following year.[4]
Arapiles ran aground in early 1873 off the Venezuelan coast and was sent to Brooklyn, New York for repairs that lasted from May to January 1874. During the Virginius Affair later that year, a lighter sank, blocking the drydock gates in which Arapiles was being repaired as tensions rose between the United States and Spain. The ship was hulked in 1879 and her reconstruction was cancelled when the poor condition of her hull was noted in 1882.[4] She was broken up a year or two later.[2]
Memorial
She is commemorated by a
bas relief, on the side of the statue of Richard Green who died while she was still under construction in his shipyard. The statue stands outside the Poplar Baths in London.[6]
Footnotes
References
- OCLC 669097244.
- Lyon, Hugh (1979). "Spain". In Gardiner, Robert (ed.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. Greenwich: Conway Maritime Press. pp. 380–386. ISBN 0-8317-0302-4.
- de Saint Hubert, Christian (1984). "Early Spanish Steam Warships, Part II". Warship International. XXI (1): 21–45. ISSN 0043-0374.
- Silverstone, Paul H. (1984). Directory of the World's Capital Ships. New York: Hippocrene Books. ISBN 0-88254-979-0.
- "Spanish Ironclads Tetuan, Mendes Nunes and Arapiles". Warship International. XI (2): 407–408. 1974. ISSN 0043-0374.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Arapiles (ship, 1864).