She achieved 14.5 knots under steam. As the ship’s coal capacity was 853 tons, only
essential operations were undertaken this way. When sailing with her 48,400 square feet of
canvas aloft, she managed a very respectable 13 knots.
Wooden warships had attained their optimum length, their multiple gun decks making
them unstable. Warrior’s ingenious design incorporated just one, very stable gun deck,
100 feet longer than any previous warship. Her firepower could blow any other vessel out
the water. Whilst wooden ships carried 32-pounder guns, Warrior had 26 68-pounders
and ten 110-pounders. She was the ultimate deterrent. Crowds of up to 6,000 people
turned out to see the new supership as she visited British ports. She never once fired a
shot in anger. Her strength was her ability to keep the peace.
One of W arrior’s 110 pounders
But Warrior was obsolete within a decade. She was relegated to the Reserve Fleet ranks
and in 1883, withdrawn from sea service. She was now little more than a floating hulk,
although still officially classed an armoured cruiser.
Her masts and guns were stripped when she was used as a depot ship for two years.
Her name became Vernon III in 1904, when she joined Portsmouth-based HMS Vernon,
the Navy’s torpedo training school. Her role was supplying steam and electricity to
neighbouring hulks. A year later, another armoured cruiser called Warrior was launched.
Nobody wanted the old battleship when she went up for sale in 1924. Five years on, she
inherited the name Oil Fuel Hulk C77 when starting life as a shipkeeper’s home and
floating oil jetty at Pembroke Dock in Wales. Some 5,000 ships refuelled alongside her in
her 50 years at Pembroke. However, the Royal Navy kept her in reasonable condition with
occasional maintenance trips into dry dock keeping her hull intact. Warrior was the only
example of the 45 ironhulls built between 1861 and 1877 to survive.
As a pivotal Royal Naval ship, Warrior had not been forgotten and in 1968, the Duke of
Edinburgh chaired a meeting on her possible rescue and restoration. The meeting’s
scope widened and the Maritime Trust was set up a year later. The Trust took charge of
Warrior in 1979 after lengthy negotiations and feasibility studies. Its vision was to restore
a well-preserved hulk into a national treasure. Home for the project was Grays Shipyard in
Hartlepool; the total cost was £8m, underwritten by Mr Smith’s grant-making charity, the
Manifold Trust.
112
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