HMS Volage (1869)

Circa 1892 photograph of HMS Volage, lead ship of the class
History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Volage
Builder	Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company, Blackwall, London
Cost	£126,156
Laid down	September 1867
Launched	27 February 1869
Commissioned	March 1870
Decommissioned	1899
Nickname(s)	Vollidge
Fate	Sold for scrap, 17 May 1904
General characteristics (as built)
Class and type	Volage-class iron screw corvette
Displacement	3,078 long tons (3,127 t)
Tons burthen	2,322 bm
Length	270 ft (82.3 m) (p/p)
Beam	42 ft 1 in (12.8 m)
Draught	21 ft 5 in (6.5 m)
Installed power	4,130 ihp (3,080 kW)
Propulsion	1 × shaft 1 × 2-cylinder horizontal return connecting rod-steam engine 5 × rectangular boilers
Sail plan	Ship rig
Speed	15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Range	2,000 nmi (3,700 km; 2,300 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement	340
Armament	6 × 7-inch rifled muzzle-loading guns 4 × 6.3-inch 64-pounder rifled muzzle-loading guns

HMS Volage was a Volage-class corvette built for the Royal Navy in the late 1860s. She spent most of her first commission assigned to the Flying Squadron circumnavigating the world, and later carried a party of astronomers to the Kerguelen Islands to observe the transit of Venus in 1874. The ship was then assigned as the senior officer's ship in South American waters until she was transferred to the Training Squadron during the 1880s. Volage was paid off in 1899 and sold for scrap in 1904.