HMS Enterprise (1848)
HMS Enterprise (left) and HMS Investigator (right) | |
History | |
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United Kingdom | |
Name: | Enterprise |
Builder: | Money Wigram and Sons, Blackwall[1] |
Cost: | £24,545[1] |
Launched: | 5 April 1848 |
Acquired: | Purchased February 1848 on stocks[1] |
Fate: |
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General characteristics | |
Class and type: | Arctic Discovery Ship |
Tonnage: | 471 tons (Builder's Measure) |
Length: | 125.6 ft (38.3 m)[1] |
Beam: | 28.8 ft (8.8 m)[1] |
Depth of hold: | 20 ft (6.1 m)[1] |
Sail plan: | Barque-rigged |
HMS Enterprise was an Arctic discovery ship laid down as a merchant vessel and purchased in 1848 before launch to search for Sir John Franklin's lost expedition. She made two Arctic voyages before becoming a coal depot, and was finally sold in 1903. She was the tenth Enterprise (or Enterprize) to serve in the Royal Navy.
Construction
She was laid down as a merchant vessel at the Blackwall yard of Money Wigram and Sons, but purchased by the Admiralty in February 1848 and fitted for Arctic exploration. She was launched on 5 April 1848.
Career
Enterprise made two voyages to the Arctic, the first via the Atlantic in 1848-1849 under James Clark Ross, then in 1850-1854 via the Pacific and the Bering Strait in an expedition led by Richard Collinson.[2]
From 1860 she was lent to the Commissioners of Northern Lights for use as a coal hulk at Oban, and from 1889 she was lent to the Board of Trade. She was sold in 1903.
Bibliography
- Arctic Hell-Ship : the voyage of HMS Enterprise, 1850-1855 by William Barr, University of Alberta Press, USA, 2007, ISBN 0-88864-482-5