HMS Rattler (1843)

HMS Rattler was a 12-gun wooden sloop of the Royal Navy and the first British warship to adopt a screw propeller powered by a steam engine. She was arguably the first such warship in the world - the sloop USS Princeton was launched after the Rattler, but was placed in commission much sooner.

Background
Screw propulsion had some obvious potential advantages for warships over paddle propulsion. Firstly, paddlewheels were exposed to enemy fire in combat, whereas a propeller and its machinery were tucked away safely well below deck. Secondly, the space taken up by paddlewheels restricted the number of guns a warship could carry, thus reducing its broadside. These potential advantages were well understood by the British Admiralty, but it was not convinced that the propeller was an effective propulsion system. It was only in 1840, when the world's first propeller-driven steamship, SS Archimedes, successfully completed a series of trials against fast paddle-wheelers, that the Navy decided to conduct further tests of the technology. For this purpose, the Navy built Rattler.

HMS Rattler was launched on 12 April 1843 at Sheerness Dockyard and spent two years on trials. She was commissioned at Woolwich on 12 December 1844 and was first commanded by Commander Henry Smith.

Service history
Rattler was pitted against a number of paddlewheelers from 1843 to 1845. These extended trials were to prove conclusively that the screw propeller was as good as, indeed superior to, the paddlewheel as a propulsion system. The most famous of these trials took place in March 1845, with Rattler conclusively beating HMS Alecto in a series of races, followed by a tug-of-war contest in which Rattler towed Alecto backwards at a speed of 2 kn. It is this which is memorialised to this day in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. A large number of different propellers were also tested on Rattler during this period to find the most effective screw design.

On 17 May 1845 the Rattler and the steamer Monkey towed HMS Erebus and HMS Terror to Orkney, Rattler returning to Woolwich on 10 June.

In June 1845 Rattler served with the 1845 Experimental Squadron.

In 1846 Rattler served with the Squadron of Evolution, departing the Squadron in November for Gibraltar from where she towed HMS Superb. She also visited Lisbon and South America, returning to be paid off in September 1847.

Rattler was captained by Commander Arthur Cumming from 12 February 1849 to 15 April 1851. During this time she was stationed off the west coast of Africa and, on 30 October 1849, captured the Brazilian slave brigantine Alepide.

On 4 August 1855, Rattler, HMS Eaglet and USS Powhatan fought a naval battle near Tai O village, Lantau, with Chinese pirates.

She later served in Africa and the East Indies, taking part in the Second Anglo-Burmese War. She was finally broken up in late 1856.