Built as a battleship under yard No 346 by Laird Bross, Birkenhead for the Royal Navy.
30 January 1867 keel laid down.
27 March 1969 launched as HMS CAPTAIN.
Displacement 7,767 ton. Dim.101.8 x 16,23 x 7.57m. (draught).
Powered by two 4-cyl. horizontal trunk steam engine,5,400 ihp., twin screws, speed 14 knots.
Ship rigged, sail area 4,600 m³.
Armament: 4 – 12 inch M.L.R. 25-tons guns, 2 – 7 inch M.L.R guns. The main turrets revolved and were placed on the centreline of the ship.
Crew 500.
January 1870 completed.
She was designed by Captain Cowper Phipps Coles, who had experimented with an elementary type of ironclad when serving in the Crimean War.
She was heavily masted with a raised forecastle and quarter deck connected by a light hurricane deck
The battleship materials used were heavy, her designed displacement was 6,950 ton but when completed she had a displacement of 7.767 tons, with barely 6 feet freeboard.
With a low freeboard little bunker coal was carried and to get some radius she reliance on her sails.
After commissioned her first few months at sea were excellent, but her low freeboard was a concern especially during rough weather, and Captain Burgoyne was advised by experienced naval officers to proceed only under steam during rough weather and not set any sail.
06 September 1870 as a unit of a squadron crossing the Gulf of Biscay in moderate weather she heeled over to an alarming extent during sailing exercises.
At 11.00 p.m. that day the wind had increased to gale force, the rolling of the ship became much more pronounced.
Sailing behind the flagship of Admiral Sir A. Milner the HMS LORD WARDEN and she was watched by that crew during intervals between rain squalls.
When the next day daylight came, the CAPTAIN was gone, and a subsequent search of the squadron for the CAPTAIN failed to find her.
Only 18 men survived who found a boat which had broken free from the ship but 483 men were lost under which Captain Burgoyne and Captain Coles the designer of the ship who was on board as a passenger.
The survivors stated that the CAPTAIN capsized on the 7th at 00.20 a.m. during a squall, and while the crew was taken in sails.
She gradually rolled to starboard and then turned completely over; floating for a few moments bottom upwards then went down by the stern.
Guinea 1997 200fr sg1740, scott1396
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Captain_(1869) Dictionary of Disasters at Sea during the Age of Steam by Charles Hocking.