3-028-571 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

H.M. Corvette Volage, 1870. 'This vessel, which has just been commissioned by Captain Francis Sullivan, C.B., is at present doing duty as guard-ship off Osborne, during her Majesty's stay in the Isle of Wight, and has there been visited by the Prince of Wales and Princesses Louisa and Beatrice. The Volage is an iron-built corvette, cased in an outer sheathing of wood, of 2322 tons burden and 600-horse power, nominal. Her armament consists of six 6½-ton 7-inch muzzle-loading rifled guns, two on each side of her quarterdeck, and one on each side, forward of the funnel, with a 64-pounder pivot gun on her topgallant forecastle and another of the same calibre on her poop. Inboard the ship is built with four water-tight bulkheads, which run up from the iron-built hull of the ship to the upper-deck planking. The Volage...[was] built and fitted out at the works of the Thames Iron and Shipbuilding Company, at Blackwall, from the designs of the Chief Constructor of the Navy, Mr. E. T. Reed, C.B. The engines are by Messrs. Penn...[She has] a higher speed than was anticipated;...having accomplished the great rate of 15.38 knots as the mean of six hours' continuous steaming with a development of 4505-horse power'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.