A surviving Ironclad

[IronDuke]

Board members might find this ship interesting:
HMVS Cerberus was built in Britain in 1868 as Flagship of the Victorian Colonial Navy in Australia. She was only the second Warship to pass through the Suez Canal. She is the worlds last surviving Ironclad Breastwork monitor and was the genesis of the design of most of the Royal Navy's Pre-Dreadnought Battleships C. 1870-1905. She was commissioned until 1923 and is, easily, the oldest surviving ship to have served in the Royal Australian Navy. She can be seen just outside Melbourne Australia and there is a very active campaign to both save and, eventually, restore her.
Ted
http://www.cerberus.com.au/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Restore_Cerberus/

[RF]

These are interesting articles, albeit from an Australian perspective.

This is a ship certainly worth preserving, if only for educational value.

Thanks for the post Ted, as usual in Britain this sort of thing seems to get little publicity.....

[IronDuke]

It is very hard to get the mass of the general public interested in her here in Australia. However we continue to grind away at it.
Ted

[chcrawfish]

The oldest surviving ironclad is HMS Warrior. She's currently at Naval Base Portsmouth, not far from HMS Victory.

[IronDuke]

The oldest surviving ironclad is HMS Warrior. She's currently at Naval Base Portsmouth, not far from HMS Victory.

Yes I know HMS Warrior of 1860 and have been aboard her. Also in England is the sail and steam sloop HMS Gannet of 1878 (she is at Chatham in Kent).

HMVS Cerberus of 1868 is the oldest surviving Ironclad Breastwork Monitor, she also has two of only three Cooper Coles gun turrets in the world (the other being on Huascar in Chile).
Ted

[hammy]

She's an awful mess though , it'dd almost be easier to build a new one , probably cheaper too .

The turrets , being armoured , are fairly intact , but the hull is in rags in places .
I mean I'm a ship lover too , but there are occasions when you have to just turn away , or show people a reconstruction or computerised simulation .

[IronDuke]

Actually only her -unarmoured- lower hull is in a bad state -easily replaced.

She is actually in better condition than either the James Craig (now in Sydney) or the SS Great Britain (now in Bristol England) were before their restoration. She is a unique ship and very important in terms of both Australian, and even British maritime and naval history.

At the moment Friends of the Cerberus have a plan -and the money- to brace her, to avoid any further major collapse, but this is only a bandaid solution until we can move her ashore and restore her, at least externally, to something like her 1890 appearence. She is still very saveable.
Ted

[chcrawfish]

Then there's the USS Olympia in Philadephia.....ouch! Quite a bit of her upper works and guns/turrets are refabrications.

[hammy]

The only reason Warrior survived is that the hull is just about indestructible , and was stripped for use as a floating fuel oil bunkering pontoon in Pembroke dock
( or was it Milford haven ? ) .

Come Mrs Thatchers Great Recession of the 1980s ( " A price worth paying " ) and they towed her up to Hartlepool , and put the unemployed to work on her to recreate the " Original " appearance , never have got done otherwise .

The ship I'd Love to see restored is HMS Caroline , the Jutland era light cruiser , presently fairly under-utilised and unavailable for viewing as an RNVR Drill ship in Belfast , N.Ireland .

[IronDuke]

I believe plans are in hand to preserve HMS Caroline once she pays off as an RNVR Drill ship. She is after all the last survivor of Jutland and the second oldest Commissioned RN Warship.
Ted

[OSCSSW]

I'm new aboard this forum. I am here to spend time with people who enjoy naval history. I hope to learn a lot and maybe contribute a little bit.

I went aboard a surviving ironclad during a Danube river cruise.
She is the SMS Leitha/Lajta and she is moored riverside in Budapest.

She is a mid 19th century single turret monitor.
She is in mint condition and well worth visiting.

[Steve Crandell]

Welcome to KBismarck! Not as busy as navweaps, but more civilized.

[Kev D]

Welcome to KBismarck! Not as busy as navweaps, but more civilized.

Much more civilised!

[OSCSSW]

Here is a recent update on the status of Cerberus
Looks like there is some hope for her restoration.


We can be contacted either via the contact form or via our postal address below:

Friends of the Cerberus Inc.,
PO Box 1231,
Blackburn North,
Victoria 3130
Australia

https://www.cerberus.com.au/

[marcelo_malara]

Yes! This forum is great, you can make the strangest and more difficult question and someone will surely answer.

Welcome!