HMS Reindeer was a 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 15 January 1883 and she was launched on 14 November 1883. 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

She was converted to a boom defence vessel in 1904, and was lent to the Liverpool Salvage Association as a salvage vessel in 1917. Re-engined in 1918 by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company

Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company

The Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Limited was a British shipbuilding company in the Govan area on the Clyde in Glasgow. Fairfields, as it is often known, was a major warship builder, turning out many vessels for the Royal Navy and other navies through the First World War and the...

with a 2100 hp engine, she was renamed Reindeer I and sold to the Halifax Shipyard Ltd as a salvage ship on 12 July 1924. She was abandoned at sea in March 1932.