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Hello, I’d like to suggest a ship that was used by Canada during WW1, well, the name had caught my eye first, the more I read into it, the more intrigued I became.
History:
The ship would start her life being designed by Cox & King, who would design her, and she would be built by Yarrow Shipbuilders for Harry McCalmont in 1902. Who was a Colonel in the British army and a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron.
Similar to the Turbinia of Charles Parsons, she would have three drive shafts, with each one driven by a steam turbine, and having more than one screw on each shaft. She would be the first turbine-driven steam yacht to be built, with her lines being similar to a destroyer of her time, leading her to be unlike most steam yachts of her time.
With Harry McCalmont’s death in December 1902, Tarantula was acquired in March 1903 by William K Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt had her towed to Bermuda and made the rest of the way to the US by her own power because her coal bunkers were too small for her to cross the North Atlantic by herself. Due to experiments performed, it was suggested that she would be just as swift without her middle turbine, so it was decided for it to be removed to save weight. During her time in American ownership, she would take part in a number of races and events that would send her in to be repaired. Vanderbilt would order a new yacht by November of 1912 and have her use the same name as the 1902 ship. She would be traded in to Lawley & Son when he got his new yacht in May of 1914.
Canadian Jack Ross would acquire the ship in August of 1914 after WW1 began. However, due to the US neutrality, they forbade the sale of ships to any nation that could use them for the war. Ross would get around this by having her fitted out in secret, well, still in the US, and having a civilian crew deliver her to Canada. When she reached Halifax on the 10th of September in 1914, Ross would sell her to the Canadian Naval Ministry for $1, with an offer to buy her back at the end of the war if she was still functional.
The yacht’s armament was two 14-inch torpedo tubes and a 3-pounder gun. She would be commissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy on the 5th of December 1914, under the name HMCS Tuna. Ross would be her commanding officer, and her pennant number would be QW-2. She would ve overhauled in Quebec during July of 1916, and on the 10th of May 1917, she would be decommissioned due to irreparable damage to her engine.
Specs:
Type: steam yacht
Tonnage: 124 GRT, 84 NRT
Length: 152.7 ft (46.5 m)
Beam: 15.35 ft (4.68 m)
Draught: 5 ft (1.5 m)
Depth: 8.7 ft (2.7 m)
Decks: 1
Propulsion: 2 × steam turbines 2 × shafts|
Speed: 26.75 knots (49.5 km/h)|
Armament:
- 2 × 14 in (360 mm) torpedo tubes
- 1 × 3-pounder gun