Japanese corvette Katsuragi

Katsuragi (葛城) was the lead ship in the Katsuragi-class corvette of three wooden-hulled, sail-and-steam corvettes of the early Imperial Japanese Navy. It was named for a mountain located between Osaka and Nara prefectures.

History
Katsuragi was designed as an iron-ribbed, wooden-hulled, three-masted barque-rigged sloop-of-war with a coal-fired double expansion reciprocating steam engine with six boilers driving a double screws. Her basic design was based on experience gained in building JAPANESE CORVETTE Kaimon and the Hiei-class corvette sloops, but was already somewhat obsolescent in comparison to contemporary European warships when completed. Katsuragi was laid down at Yokosuka Naval Arsenal 18 August 1883, launched on 31 March 1885 and commissioned on 4 November 1887.

Katsuragi saw combat service in the First Sino-Japanese War, patrolling between Korea, Dairen and Weihaiwei. It was also at the Battle of Yalu River (1894) in a reserve capacity in the Western Fleet.

On 21 March 1898, Katsuragi was re-designated a third-class gunboat, and was used for coastal survey and patrol duties. On 6 October 1900, Katsuragi ran aground off of Izu Ōshima (island). It took over a month to refloat her, after which she underwent extensive repairs at Yokosuka.

During the Russo-Japanese War, Katsuragi served as a guard ship in Nagasaki harbor. She was reclassified a second class coastal patrol vessel on 28 August 1912, and was retired from the navy list and scrapped on 4 November 1913.