HMS Sappho (1891)
1891 Apollo-class protected cruiser
HMS Sappho was an Apollo-class cruiser of the British Royal Navy which served from 1892 to 1918 in various colonial posts as well as around Britain.
From 1900 she served as a troop ship during the Second Boer War, but in June 1901 she went aground while crossing the Durban Bar and had to leave for repairs in the United Kingdom. She was escorted from Las Palmas by HMS Furious and arrived at Sheerness on 21 August 1901, proceeding to Chatham for repairs the following day. She was paid off at Chatham 18 September 1901.
On the night of 19 June 1909 Sappho was rammed by a Wilson Line steamer which collided with Sappho in thick fog off Dungeness. The cruiser was holed below the waterline, flooding her engine room. The cruiser almost sank, but was saved by tugs and was taken to Chatham for repair. Despite the damage, with an 8 by 6 feet (2.4 m × 1.8 m) hole in her hull, the cruiser was repaired and able to return to service within six days. On 30 September 1909 Sappho was paid off at Portsmouth Dockyard for a refit.
On the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, Sappho was attached to the Grand Fleet.
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This entry incorporates text from “HMS Sappho (1891)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.