HEIC Nemesis
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Launched in 1839, the Honorable East India Company Nemesis was the first British ocean-going iron warship, and was used to great effect in the First Opium War in China.
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[edit] History
[edit] Construction
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The warship's displacement was 660 tons, she was armed with two 32 pounder and four 6 pounder guns, and could carry a crew of 90[1]. The steam- and sail-powered ship was particularly effective in China because its shallow draft (5-6 feet) allowed it to travel into rivers to pursue and engage other vessels and targets.
The Nemesis was built by John Laird. Its watertight bulkheads were the first to be used in a warship. In 1840, the HEIC Nemesis became the first iron ship to sail around Cape Horn, aided by techniques to adjust a compass for the effect of an iron hull developed the year before by Sir George Airy, the Astronomer Royal.
[edit] Nemesis in fiction
James Clavell's novel Tai-Pan refers to a groundbreaking iron ship called the Nemesis taking part in the First Opium War. However, the fictionalized vessel is a Royal Navy ship that arrived to assist in the shallow Chinese rivers that would be traversed to gain access to inland China. Clavell's Nemesis was also capable of pulling a 96 gun ship-of-the-Line, a ship that would have outweighed the real Nemesis by several thousand tons.
[edit] References
- ^ Others: Model of HEIC Warship Nemesis, Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defense, Accessed 2007-06-04
