The Hector-class ironclads,[1] like their immediate predecessors, the, were designed as smaller and cheaper versions of the armoured frigates. They were modified versions of the Defence-class ships with additional armour and more powerful engines.[2] HMS Hector was 280feet long between perpendiculars. She had a beam of 56feet and a draft of 26feet.[3] The ship was 300LT overweight and displaced 7000LT.[2] The hull was subdivided by watertight transverse bulkheads into 92 compartments and had a double bottom underneath the engine and boiler rooms.[4] The ships were designed with a very low centre of gravity and had a metacentric height of 4feet. While handy in manoeuvering, they rolled quite badly.[5]
Hector had one 2-cylinder horizontal return connecting rod steam engine made by Robert Napier and Sons driving a single 201NaN1 propeller. Six boilers provided steam to the engine at a working pressure of 22psi. The engine produced a total of 3256ihp. During sea trials on 23 February 1864, Hector had a maximum speed of 12.36kn. The ship carried 450LT of coal,[6] enough to steam 800nmi at full speed. Hector was the first British ironclad to have her machinery made by her builders.[7]
The ship was barque-rigged and had a sail area of 24500square feet. Her funnel was semi-retractable to reduce wind resistance while under sail alone. She was designed to allow the ship's propeller to be hoisted up into the stern of the ship to reduce drag while under sail, but the hoisting gear was never fitted.[8]
The armament of the Hector-class ships was intended to be 32 smoothbore, muzzle-loading 68-pounder guns, 15 on each side on the main deck and one each fore and aft as chase guns on the upper deck. This was modified during construction to four rifled 110-pounder breech-loading guns and twenty-four 68-pounders. The breech-loading guns were a new design from Armstrong and much was hoped for them. To partially alleviate their overweight condition, the ships were not fully armed and only received four 110-pounders on the upper deck and twenty 68-pounders on the main deck behind armour. Firing tests carried out in September 1861 against an armoured target, however, proved that the 110-pounder was inferior to the 68-pounder smoothbore gun in armour penetration and repeated incidents of breech explosions during the Battles for Shimonoseki and the Bombardment of Kagoshima in 1863–1864 caused the navy to withdraw the gun from service shortly afterwards.[9]
The 7.9sing=onNaNsing=on solid shot of the 68-pounder gun weighed approximately 68lb while the gun itself weighed 10640lb. The gun had a muzzle velocity of 1579ft/s and had a range of at an elevation of 12°. The 7sing=onNaNsing=on shell of the 110-pounder Armstrong breech-loader weighed 107lb110lb. It had a muzzle velocity of 1150ft/s and, at an elevation of 11.25°, a maximum range of . The 110-pounder gun weighed 9520lb. All of the guns could fire both solid shot and explosive shells.[10]
Hector was rearmed during her 1867–1868 refit with sixteen 7-inch and two 8inches rifled muzzle-loading guns. The two 8-inch guns were mounted on the quarterdeck where they could be fought in all weathers and four 7-inch guns were also fitted on the upper deck. The remaining twelve 7-inch guns were carried on the main deck.[11] The shell of the 15-calibre 8-inch gun weighed 175lb while the gun itself weighed 9LT. It had a muzzle velocity of 1410ft/s and was credited with the ability to penetrate a nominal 9.6inches of wrought iron armour at the muzzle. The 16-calibre 7-inch gun weighed 6.5LT and fired a 112lb shell. It was credited with the nominal ability to penetrate 7.7adj=onNaNadj=on armour.[12]
The Hector-class ships had a wrought-iron waterline armour belt, 4.5inches thick, that covered 216feet amidships and left the bow and stern unprotected. To protect against raking fire the belt was closed off by 4.5-inch transverse bulkheads at each end at lower deck level. The armour extended to 5inchesft8inchesin (ftin) below the waterline. The main deck was protected by a strake of armour that ran the full length of the ship. Amidships, it was 4.5-inch thick for a length of 216 feet and tapered to a thickness of to the ends of the ship.[9] The armour was backed by of teak. The lack of armour at the stern meant that the steering gear was very vulnerable.[13]
HMS Hector was laid down on 8 March 1861 by Robert Napier and Sons at their shipyard in Govan. She was launched on 26 September 1862 and commissioned on 22 February 1864.[14] She cost £294,000 to build, including a payment of £35,000 to her builders who had underestimated their costs.[5] She served with the Channel Fleet until 1867, when she was paid off to be re-armed and to refit. She formed part of the Southern Reserve Fleet between 1868 until 1886; during this time her only military activity occurred when she was detailed to service in the Particular Service Squadron under the command of Admiral Hornsby during the Russian war scare of June–August 1878. Hector was assigned as Queen Victoria's guard ship nearly every summer during this period when the Queen, and her family, were in residence in Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.[15] She was paid off at Portsmouth in 1886 and remained there, partly dismantled, until 1900 when she briefly became part of the torpedo school HMS Vernon as a store hulk. Hector became the first British warship to have wireless telegraphy installed when she conducted the first trials of the new equipment for the Royal Navy. The ship was sold for scrap in 1905.[16]