HMS Imperieuse (1883): The Cruiser That Came in Over Budget and Under Sail

Built at Portsmouth

HMS Imperieuse was laid down at Portsmouth Royal Dockyard on 10 August 1881, launched on 18 December 1883 and finally completed in September 1886, a long and troubled gestation for an armoured cruiser conceived as an enlarged version of the earlier Nelson-class design. She was intended to measure 315 feet in length and displace 7,390 tons, but the completed ship came in at 8,500 tons, over a thousand tons heavier than planned, a genuinely significant design overrun that spoke to just how difficult naval architects of the period found it to accurately predict the weight of a warship still carrying a mix of traditional and experimental technology.

A Ship That Could Barely Sail

HMS Imperieuse's design troubles extended well beyond her weight problem: she was initially rigged as a brig with two masts, in keeping with the Royal Navy's lingering, if increasingly outdated, expectation that even steam-powered cruisers should retain a genuine sailing capability for long-distance cruising when coal supplies ran low. Trials quickly revealed the plan simply did not work: HMS Imperieuse proved to have genuinely poor sailing qualities, and her original rig was replaced by a single military mast amidships shortly after completion, a fairly public admission that the sailing cruiser concept, already on its way out across the rest of the fleet, was entirely unsuited to a ship of her particular design.

Flagship on Two Stations

HMS Imperieuse's design troubles did not prevent her from going on to a genuinely solid career despite her rocky start: she served as flagship of the China Station from 1889 to 1894, and later as flagship of the Pacific Station from 1896 to 1899, prestigious commands that placed her at the head of British naval power across two of the Royal Navy's most far-flung and strategically important overseas deployments.

A New Name, and the End

HMS Imperieuse underwent extensive repairs at Chatham in early 1900, before being renamed Sapphire II in February 1905 and reclassified as a destroyer depot ship at Portland, a considerably less glamorous role than her earlier flagship postings. She reverted to her original name, Imperieuse, in June 1909, and was finally sold on 24 September 1913 to Thos. W. Ward of Morecambe for breaking up, closing out the career of a cruiser whose troubled birth, over budget, over weight and unable to sail properly, had nonetheless given way to a genuinely respectable and useful career flying the flag on two separate corners of the globe.