HMS Daedalus (1826)

HMS Daedalus was a nineteenth-century warship of the Royal Navy. She was launched as a fifth-rate frigate of 46 guns of the Modified Leda class in 1826, but never commissioned in that role, being roofed over fore and aft and then laid up in Ordinary (reserve). After spending 18 years laid up in reserve, she was raséed (cut down) at Woolwich Dockyard into a corvette, reduced to 19 guns in 1844.

Another of the original illustrations
For other ships with the same name, see HMS Daedalus.

The Daedalus sea serpent of 1848
History
United Kingdom
Name: HMS Daedalus
Ordered: 23 July 1817
Builder: Sheerness Dockyard
Laid down: November 1822
Launched: 22 May 1826 (floated out)
Fate: Sold 14 September 1911
General characteristics
Class and type: Modified Leda-class frigate
Tons burthen: 1082 bm
Length:
  • 150 ft 10.25 in (45.9804 m) (gundeck)
  • 127 ft 4.5 in (38.824 m) (keel)
Beam: 40 ft 3.5 in (12.281 m)
Depth of hold: 12 ft 9 in (3.89 m)
Sail plan: Full-rigged ship
Complement: 300
Armament:
  • 46 guns (original)
  • Upper deck: Twenty-eight 18-pounder guns
  • Forecastle: Two 9-pounder guns and two 32-pounder carronades
  • Quarter deck: Eight 9-pounder guns and six 32-pounder carronades

On 6 August 1848, Captain McQuhae of Daedalus and several of his officers and crew (en route to St Helena) saw a sea serpent which was subsequently reported (and debated) in The Times. The vessel sighted what they named as an enormous serpent between the Cape of Good Hope and St Helena. The serpent was witnessed to have been swimming with four feet (1.2 m) of its head above the water and they believed that there was another sixty feet (18 m) of the creature in the sea. Captain McQuahoe also said that "[The creature] passed rapidly, but so close under our lee quarter, that had it been a man of my acquaintance I should have easily have recognised his features with the naked eye." According to seven members of the crew it remained in view for around twenty minutes. Another officer wrote that the creature was more of a lizard than a serpent. Evolutionary biologist Gary J. Galbreath contends that what the crew of Daedalus saw was a sei baleen whale.[1]

In 1853, Daedalus was laid up at Plymouth Dockyard. Between March and June 1851 she was fitted out as a training ship, and transferred to the Royal Naval Reserve as a drill ship at Bristol. She was finally paid off from this role in September 1910, and sold in 1911 at Bristol to take to pieces.

  • Matthew Willis, Daedalus and the Deep (2013)

References
  1. Mystery of the Daedalus Sea Serpent Solved. Skeptical Inquirer. September-October 2015
  • "Big eels and little eels" in Eagle Annual 1968, Oldhams books limited, Holland, 1967, p 118.
  • "Don't Shoot the Albatros!: Nautical Myths and Superstitions" by Jonathan Eyers, A&C Black, London, UK, 2011, p 87.
  • Mid-Victorian ships of the Royal Navy
  • The Sail and Steam Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815-1889 Rif Winfield and David Lyon. Chatham Publishing, 2004. ISBN 1-86176-032-9.

Further reading
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