 Olga in Kiel, sometime before 1890
| |
| History | |
|---|---|
 German Empire | |
| Name | Olga |
| Namesake | Olga Nikolaevna of Russia |
| Ordered | 1878 |
| Builder | AG Vulcan Stettin |
| Laid down | 1879 |
| Launched | 11 December 1880 |
| Commissioned | 9 January 1882 |
| Fate | Broken up, 1908 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | Carola-class corvette |
| Displacement | Full load: 2,424 t (2,386 long tons) |
| Length | 76.35 m (250 ft 6 in) |
| Beam | 12.5 m (41 ft) |
| Draft | 4.98 m (16 ft 4 in) |
| Installed power |
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| Propulsion | |
| Speed | 13.9 knots (25.7 km/h; 16.0 mph) |
| Range | 3,420 nautical miles (6,330 km; 3,940 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
| Crew |
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| Armament |
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SMS Olga was the second member of the Carola class of steam corvettes built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the 1880s. Intended for service in the German colonial empire, the ship was designed with a combination of steam and sail power for extended range, and was equipped with a battery of ten 15-centimeter (5.9 in) guns. Olga was laid down at the AG Vulcan in Stettin in 1879, she was launched in December 1880, and she was completed in January 1882.
In the course of her career, Olga was sent abroad on three major deployments. The first, uneventful voyage came in 1882, and took the vessel to South American waters for a year and a half. During the cruise, Prince Heinrich of Prussia served aboard the ship. The second cruise came shortly thereafter, when the German Admiralty sent her to the German colony of Kamerun as part of the West African Squadron to suppress a rebellion against German rule. Her third cruise took place between 1885 and 1889, and saw the ship alternate between German East Africa and German New Guinea in the central Pacific Ocean. While in Samoa in 1889, Olga was badly damaged by a powerful cyclone and was forced to leave the station for repairs.
From 1890, Olga saw limited service, in a variety of subsidiary roles. She was used as a training ship from 1893 to 1897, when she was transferred to the Fishery School. She conducted an extensive survey in Spitzbergen in 1898 before being decommissioned late in the year, to be converted into a gunnery training ship. She served in that capacity until 1905, when she was stricken from the naval register. Olga was sold for scrap the following year and was broken up in 1908.