HMS Malacca (1853)

HMS Malacca was a 17-gun sloop of the Royal Navy, launched in 1853.[2] She later served as the Tsukuba of the Imperial Japanese Navy.[1]

History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Malacca
Ordered:	9 November 1847
Builder:	Moulmein, Burma[1][2] Begun by Mr Mould Completed by Mr Ladd
Laid down:	29 May 1849
Launched:	9 April 1853
Completed:	17 August 1854
Commissioned:	7 May 1853[1]
Decommissioned:	1869[2]
Out of service:	Sold in June 1869
Japan
Name:	Tsukuba[1]
Commissioned:	1869[1]
Decommissioned:	1906[1]
Reclassified:	Static training vessel c. 1900
Fate:	Broken up in 1906
General characteristics in British service
Class and type:	Sloop (as built) Corvette (from 1862)
Displacement:	1758 tons[2]
Tons burthen:	1,034 ​^28⁄94 bm
Length:	192 ft (59 m) (gundeck) 168 ft 2.5 in (51.270 m) (keel)
Beam:	34 ft 4 in (10.46 m)
Depth of hold:	22 ft 8 in (6.91 m)
Installed power:	200 nhp/692 ihp (516 kW) After 1862: 707 ihp (527 kW)
Propulsion:	As built John Penn & Son 2-cylinder (283/8in diameter, 2½ft stroke) inclined single expansion, trunk, high pressure engine Single screw After 1862 Humphrys & Tennant 2-cylinder (42¼in diameter, 26in stroke) horizontal single expansion engine
Speed:	(Under steam) As built: 9.2 kn (10.6 mph) After 1862: 9.5 kn (10.9 mph)
Armament:	1 × 8-inch (65cwt) gun 16 × 32-pounder (32cwt) guns
General characteristics in Japanese service
Armament:	6 × 4.5-inch BL guns 2 × 30-pounder guns 2 × 24-pounder guns 4 × 6-inch QF guns (after 1892)

HM ships Grappler, Shearwater and Malacca (far right) on the Pacific Station, British Columbia

Malacca was built to a design drawn up by the Surveyor’s Department and approved in 1848. She was ordered on 9 November 1847 from a Mr. Mould, at Moulmein, Burma and was laid down on 29 May 1849. She was launched on 9 April 1853, and completed by Mr. Ladd, the Government Inspector, the original builder, Mr. Mould, having failed in the meantime. She was sailed to Britain in May 1853, where she was given her engines and her fitting out was completed at Chatham Dockyard. She was undocked on 8 August 1854.

In January 1857, she rescued the survivors from the Royal Sicilian Navy ship Carlo III, which suffered a boiler explosion and sank in the Mediterranean Sea with the loss of more than half of her 100 crew.[3] After several years of service she was re-engined in 1862, and reclassified as a corvette at about this time. After serving for a further seven years, she was sold in June 1869 to E. Bates. Bates sold her later that year to the Imperial Japanese Navy, who took her into service as the Tsukuba. She served as a stationary training ship after about 1900, and was broken up in 1906.

Notes

1. "Mid-Victorian RN vessel HMS Malacca". Retrieved 18 June 2012.
2. "HMS Malacca". Retrieved 18 June 2012.
3. "Naples". The Morning Chronicle (28099) (Second ed.). London. 14 January 1857.

References

• Jentschura, Hansgeorg; Jung, Dieter & Mickel, Peter (1977). Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869–1945. Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute. ISBN 0-87021-893-X.
• Lacroix, Eric & Wells II, Linton (1997). Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-311-3.
• Lengerer, Hans (2020). "The Kanghwa Affair and Treaty: A Contribution to the Pre-History of the Chinese–Japanese War of 1894–1895". Warship International. International Naval Research Organization. LVII (2): 110–131. ISSN 0043-0374.
• Winfield, R.; Lyon, D. (2004). The Sail and Steam Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815–1889. London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-032-6.