Cricket-class destroyer

The Cricket-class coastal destroyers were a series class of small torpedo boat destroyers intended to complement the Royal Navy's destroyers. The thirty-six vessels which broadly comprised this group were actually consisting of several distinct classes.

The first twelve (White's Cricket Class, Thornycroft's Gadfly Class and Yarrow's Mayfly Class) were ordered in 1905 and launched in early 1906. In practice they were not strong enough for open ocean operations and were reclassified as 1st class torpedo boats. These first twelve had been given names but in October 1906 all were then given the numbers TB 1 to TB 12 and their names were withdrawn; the following two batches - each of twelve more boats - were only ever given numbers and were 10 ft longer. The last boat was launched in 1909. Those that survived the war (six were wartime losses) were sold off from 1919 to 1921.

They were built by six different yards (thirteen by White at Cowes, nine by Thornycroft at Woolston, Hampshire, four each by Denny at Dumbarton and Hawthorn at Hebburn, and three each by Yarrow at Cubitt Town and Palmers at Jarrow).

The boats differed in detail as each shipbuilder was allowed to construct to their own design, and the designs were modified and enlarged for the later batches, but all had two funnels with one of the torpedo tubes on the stern. These vessels resembled the earliest 26-knotter TBDs of 1892-93, having 'turtle-back' forecastles.

By 1914 all boats were serving in North Sea Patrol Flotillas or the Nore Local Defence Flotilla. TB 4 and TB 24 won the Battle Honour Belgian Coast 1915. In 1918 four boats were sent to the Mediterranean: TB 17 and TB 18 served at Gibraltar, TB 29 and TB 30 at Malta, where these went to the breakers.