HMS Hector (1862)

British lead ship of Hector class

HMS Hector was the lead ship of the armoured frigates ordered by the Royal Navy in 1861. Upon completion in 1864, she was assigned to the Channel Fleet. The ship was paid off in 1867 to refit and be re armed. Upon recommissioning in 1868, she was assigned as the guard ship of the Fleet Reserve in the southern district until 1886. She usually served as Queen Victoria's guard ship when the sovereign was resident at her vacation home on the Isle of Wight. Hector was paid off in 1886 and hulked in 1900 as a storage ship before being sold for scrap in 1905.

The Hector class ironclads, 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. HMS Hector was 280 feet (85 m) long between perpendiculars. She had a beam of 56 feet (17 m) and a draft of 26 feet (8 m). The ship was overweight and displaced The ships were designed with a very low centre of gravity and had a metacentric height of 4 feet (1 m). While handy in manoeuvering, they rolled quite badly.

Hector had one 2 cylinder horizontal return connecting rod steam engine made by Robert Napier and Sons driving a single 20 feet (6 m) propeller. Six boilers provided steam to the engine at a working pressure of The engine produced a total of During sea trials on 23 February 1864, Hector had a maximum speed of The ship carried of coal, enough to steam at full speed. Hector was the first British ironclad to have her machinery made by her builders. The ship was barque rigged and had a sail area of 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.

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. The solid shot of the 68 pounder gun weighed approximately while the gun itself weighed The gun had a muzzle velocity of and had a range of at an elevation of 12°. The shell of the 110 pounder Armstrong breech loader weighed It had a muzzle velocity of and, at an elevation of 11.25°, a maximum range of The 110 pounder gun weighed All of the guns could fire both solid shot and explosive shells. Hector was rearmed during her 1867–1868 refit with sixteen 7 inch and two 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. The shell of the 15 calibre 8 inch gun weighed while the gun itself weighed It had a muzzle velocity of and was credited with the ability to penetrate a nominal of wrought iron armour at the muzzle. The 16 calibre 7 inch gun weighed and fired a shell. It was credited with the nominal ability to penetrate armour.

The Hector class ships had a wrought iron waterline armour belt, thick, that covered 216 feet (66 m) 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 5 feet (2 m) 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.

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. She cost £294,000 to build, including a payment of £35,000 to her builders who had underestimated their costs. 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.