HMS Fly was an 18-gun sloop

Sloop

A sloop is a sail boat with a fore-and-aft rig and a single mast farther forward than the mast of a cutter....

 of the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

. She was responsible for the exploration and charting of much of Australia's north-east coast and nearby islands. She was converted to a coal hulk in 1855 and broken up in 1903.

Design and construction

Fly was a development of the designed by Professor Inman of the School of Naval Architecture. She was 114 in 4 in (34.85 m) long on the gundeck and 93 foot at the keel. She had a beam of 31 in 7 in (9.63 m) overall, and a hold depth of 14 in 5 in (4.39 m), giving her a tonnage of 485 69/94 bm

Builder's Old Measurement

Builder's Old Measurement is the method of calculating the size or cargo capacity of a ship used in England from approximately 1720 to 1849. It estimated the tonnage of a ship based on length and maximum beam...

. Her armament was made up of sixteen 32-pounder carronade

Carronade

The carronade was a short smoothbore, cast iron cannon, developed for the Royal Navy by the Carron Company, an ironworks in Falkirk, Scotland, UK. It was used from the 1770s to the 1850s. Its main function was to serve as a powerful, short-range anti-ship and anti-crew weapon...

s and a pair of 9-pounder bow chasers

Chase gun

The chase guns, usually distinguished as bow chasers and stern chasers were cannons mounted in the bow or stern of a sailing ship...

.

Fly and her three sister ships Harrier, Argus and Acorn were ordered on 30 January 1829. She was laid down in November 1829 and launched from Pembroke Dockyard on 25 August 1831. Argus and Acorn were cancelled on 27 April 1831, leaving Fly as the lead ship of a class of two.

Service

She was commissioned at Plymouth on 27 January 1832 under the command of Commander Peter M'Quhae and served initially on the North America and West Indies station, returning to Portsmouth on 30 September 1833. After another two years on the same station she paid off at Portsmouth on 5 September 1835. By September 1836 she was fitting out for the South America station, including work in the Pacific Ocean. She arrived at Spithead

Spithead

Spithead is an area of the Solent and a roadstead off Gilkicker Point in Hampshire, England. It is protected from all winds, except those from the southeast...

 on 17 July 1840 from South America with 1,700,000 dollars and sailed for Plymouth to be paid off. In December 1841 she commissioned at Plymouth under the command of Francis Price Blackwood

Francis Price Blackwood

Francis Price Blackwood was a British naval officer who while posted at several different locations during his time in the Royal Navy, spent much of his time posted in colonial Australia and was an instrumental pioneer of regions near Australia's east coast and nearby islands.Born as the second...

 to survey the Torres Straits in company with the cutter .

During the early to mid 1840s, she charted numerous routes through and from many locations around Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

's north-east coast and nearby island

Island

An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot , or holm...

s, including Whitsunday Island

Whitsunday Island

Whitsunday Island is the largest island in the Whitsunday group of islands located off the coast of Central Queensland, Australia. Whitsunday Island is located at...

 and the Capricorn Islands.

After being discovered during the survey of the Gulf of Papua

Gulf of Papua

The Gulf of Papua is a 400 kilometer wide region on the south shore of New Guinea. Some of New Guinea's largest rivers, such as the Fly River, Turama River, Kikori River and Purari River, flow into the gulf, making it a large delta. While the western coast is characterized by swampy tidal...

, New Guinea

New Guinea

New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...

, the Fly River

Fly River

The Fly at , is the second longest river, after the Sepik, in Papua New Guinea. The Fly is the largest river in Oceania, the largest in the world without a single dam in its catchment, and overall ranks as the twenty-fifth largest river in the world by volume of discharge...

 was named after the ship. Embarked during her voyages of exploration were the geologist and naturalist Joseph Jukes

Joseph Jukes

Joseph Beete Jukes , born to John and Sophia Jukes at Summer Hill, Birmingham, England, was a renowned geologist, author of several geological manuals and served as a naturalist on the expeditions of HMS Fly .Jukes was educated at Wolverhampton, King Edward's School, Birmingham and St John's...

 and the naturalist John MacGillivray

John MacGillivray

John MacGillivray was a Scottish-naturalist, active in Australia between 1842 and 1867.MacGillivray was born in Aberdeen, the son of ornithologist William MacGillivray. He took part in three of the Royal Navy's surveying voyages in the Pacific...

.

Fly returned to the United Kingdom, arriving at Spithead on 19 June 1846 and proceeded to Plymouth to pay off. She was commissioned again on 14 October 1847 under Commander Richard Oliver, and was employed in surveying in the Pacific and New Zealand. After 4 years of work in the area she returned to the United Kingdom, arriving at Plymouth Sound on the evening of 4 December 1851 and paying off on 13 December.

Fate

She was laid up as a coal hulk at Devonport in 1855. During this part of her career, she was renamed C2, and then C70. She was finally broken up in 1903.