HMCS Rainbow
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HMCS Rainbow C/S VDB was an Apollo-second class protected cruiser serving the RN and RCN.
Royal Navy Service
Built for Britain's Royal Navy by Palmers at Hebburn-On-Tyne in England, she was launched on the 25th of March 1891 as HMS Rainbow and entered service in 1893. She would serve in China Station from 1895 to 1898 and in Malta from 1898 to 1899.
Royal Canadian Navy Service
HMS Rainbow was presented to Canada in 1910 with the same name. Along with HMCS Niobe, became the first ships of the Royal Canadian Navy being purchased from the Admiralty entering Canadian service in 1910. , her initial duties included training, ceremonial visits and fishery patrols. It served Canada's west coast from Esquimalt and was decommissioned in 1917 and re-entered service in July 1917 as a depot ship. She served until 1920, patrolling in World War I and training the first generation of Canadian naval recruits.
After being paid off in 1920 she was sold as a freighter in Seattle, Washington and later scrapped.
The ship's name was used again for a Tench-class submarine from the United States (ex-USS Argonaut (SS-475) and serving from 1968 to 1974.
Operational details
- Weight: 3,600 tons
- Length: 314 feet
- Beam: 43.5'
- Draught: 17.5'
- Armaments: 2-6" guns, 2-4.7" guns, 8-6 pounders, 2 or 4-14" torpedo tubes
- Crew: 273 to 300
- Speed: 19.75 knots
- Horsepower: 9,000
References
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