HMS Prince (1854)

For other ships with the same name, see HMS Prince.

HMS Prince was a Royal Navy storeship purchased in 1854 from mercantile owners and lost in a storm off Balaklava in November that year during the Crimean War.

The Wreckage of the Black Prince (sic) by Ivan Constantinovich Aivazovsky
History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Prince
Builder	C J Mare, Blackwall[1]
Launched	12 April 1854[1]
Acquired	Purchased in 1854
Fate	Wrecked 14 November 1854[1]
General characteristics
Type	Storeship
Tons burthen	2710 bm[1]
Length	291 ft 6 in (88.85 m)[1]
Beam	41 ft 6 in (12.65 m)[1]
Depth of hold	30 ft 8 in (9.35 m)[1]
Installed power	300 nominal horsepower 815 ihp (608 kW)[1]
Propulsion	2-cylinder horizontal single-expansion steam engine Single screw[1]

She was purchased from the General Screw Steam Shipping Company for £105,000 by Admiralty Order dated July 1854 and commissioned under Commander Benjamin Baynton. She sailed for the Crimea, carrying 150 persons and a cargo of much needed winter uniforms. The loss of the ship and its cargo caused a public outcry in Britain because of the severe winter conditions being endured by troops in unsuitable clothing.^[2]

She was destroyed at a deep water anchorage outside Balaklava by a hurricane-force storm that tore her from her anchorage and dashed her onto rocks: she broke up completely within ten minutes and only six of her 150 crew were saved. Correspondent William Howard Russell considered her officers to have been negligent in losing her bower anchors. Commander Bayntoun, her commanding officer, perished in the wreck.^[3]

Twenty-nine other Allied transport ships were wrecked during the same storm.^[4]

A Ukrainian maritime archeological team led by Sergei Voronov, of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences discovered the wreck in 2010 off Balaklava.^[5]

A memorial to one of the lost

Citations

1. Winfield (2004) p.243
2. The loss (and discovery) of Crimean troop ship, HMS Prince Archived 28 March 2010 at the Wayback Machine
3. The Times article; 5 Dec 1854^{[dead link]}
4. "Crimean War, 1853-1856".
5. Ukrainians uncover Crimean British Navy vessel

References

• Winfield, R.; Lyon, D. (2004). The Sail and Steam Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815–1889. London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-032-6. OCLC 52620555.

External links

• Media related to HMS Prince (ship, 1854) at Wikimedia Commons