Built as an armoured gunboat by Lungley at Deptford, U.K. for the Royal Navy.
04 June 1864 keel laid down.
18 Nov. 1865 launched under the name HMS VIXEN. Two sisters the VIPER and WATERWITCH.
Tonnage 754/737 B.O.M (Builder’s Old Measurement) Displacement 1.230 tons Dim. 48.77 x 9.75 x 3.55m.
Powered by a Maudslay horizontal reciprocating steam engines, 740 hp., speed 9.24 knots. Twin screws, the VIXEN and VIPER were the first ships by the Royal Navy fitted out with two screws.
VIXEN was the first composite-hulled gunboat.
Armament 2 – 7 inch MLR on centerline pivots and 2 –20pdrs BL. guns.
Crew 80 officers and ratings.
15 November 1866 commissioned.
The class was designed by Rear-Admiral George Elliot and the Controller’s Department, and were largely experimental. It design was a futile attempt to match a big ship’s defensive, but she did look like a big black crocodile with her long low silhouette and blunt snout-bow.
The Admiralty had given orders to fit the vessels out with masts and yards, the enormous weight of the masts and yards made them so unseaworthy, that men refused to take them to sea. She was used only for harbour defence.
The VIXEN ended her days in disgrace as a failure; she crossed the Atlantic under tow together with the VIPER bound for Bermuda, there again in use as a coastal defence vessel, and later as a floating dormitory for dockyard workers.
1896 After her usable parts were removed she was scuttled to block Chubb Cut Channel protecting the Royal Navy Dockyard for enemy attacks via the small channel.
You can still see her bowram, which is above water in the channel. The vessel is a diving attraction at Bermuda.
Bermuda 1986 15c sg 512A, scott 487
Source Log Book. Send a gunboat by Preston and Major.