HMS Mariner was the name-ship 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...

 Mariner-class

Mariner class gunvessel

The Mariner class was a class of 8-gun gunvessels built for the Royal Navy between 1883 and 1888.-Design:...

 composite screw gunvessel of 8 guns.

Construction

Designed by Nathaniel Barnaby

Nathaniel Barnaby

Sir Nathaniel Barnaby, KCB was Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy from 1872 to 1885....

, the Royal Navy Director of Naval Construction

Director of Naval Construction

The Director of Naval Construction was a senior British civil servant post in the Admiralty, that part of the British Civil Service that oversaw the Royal Navy. The post existed from 1860 to 1966....

, her hull was of composite construction; that is, iron keel, frames, stem and stern posts with wooden planking. She was fitted with a 2-cylinder horizontal compound expansion steam engine driving a single screw, produced by Hawthorn Leslie. She was rigged with three masts, with square rig on the fore- and main-masts, making her a barque

Barque

A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts.- History of the term :The word barque appears to have come from the Greek word baris, a term for an Egyptian boat. This entered Latin as barca, which gave rise to the Italian barca, Spanish barco, and the French barge and...

-rigged vessel. Her keel was laid at Devonport Royal Dockyard

HMNB Devonport

Her Majesty's Naval Base Devonport , is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy . HMNB Devonport is located in Devonport, in the west of the city of Plymouth in Devon, England...

 on 8 January 1883 and she was launched on 23 June 1884. Her entire class were re-classified in November 1884 as sloops

Sloop-of-war

In the 18th and most of the 19th centuries, a sloop-of-war was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. As the rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above, this meant that the term sloop-of-war actually encompassed all the unrated combat vessels including the...

 before they entered service.

Career

Mariner was commissioned into the Royal Navy on 19 March 1885. She became a boom defence vessel in 1903 and was lent to the Liverpool Salvage Association as a salvage vessel in 1917, with her sister-ship Reindeer

HMS Reindeer (1883)

HMS Reindeer was a Royal Navy Mariner-class composite screw gunvessel of 8 guns.-Construction:Designed by Nathaniel Barnaby, the Royal Navy Director of Naval Construction, her hull was of composite construction; that is, iron keel, frames, stem and stern posts with wooden planking...

. She was laid up from 1922 to 1929 and sold to Hughes Bolckow of Blyth

Blyth, Northumberland

Blyth is a town and civil parish in southeast Northumberland, England. It lies on the coast, to the south of the River Blyth and is approximately 21 kilometres  northeast of Newcastle upon Tyne...

on 19 March 1929.