Greyhound-class destroyer

Three Greyhound-class destroyers served with the Royal Navy during the First World War. Built in 1899–1902, Greyhound, Racehorse and Roebuck were three-funnelled turtle-backed destroyers, with the usual Hawthorn funnel tops, built by R. & W. Hawthorn, Leslie & Company at their Hebburn-on-Tyne shipyard.

Greyhound underway at Portland in 1906
Class overview
Name	Greyhound
Builders	Hawthorn Leslie, Hebburn
Operators	Royal Navy
Preceded by	Mermaid class
Built	1899–1902
In commission	1902–1920
Completed	3
Scrapped	3
General characteristics
Type	Destroyer
Displacement	385 long tons (391 t) light 430 long tons (437 t) full load
Length	214 ft 6 in (65.38 m) overall
Beam	21 ft 1 in (6.43 m)
Draught	13 ft (4.0 m)
Installed power	6,100 shp (4,549 kW)
Propulsion	4 × Yarrow boilers 2 × vertical triple-expansion steam engines 2 shafts
Speed	30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph)
Complement	62
Armament	1 × QF 12 pounder 12 cwt gun 5 × 2-pounder guns (2 × 1) 2 × 18 inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes (2 × 1)

They were virtually identical to the Mermaid-class destroyer built a couple of years earlier by the same company, except that they used a different type of water-tube boiler; Yarrow rather than Thornycroft. These four boilers produced 6,100 hp to given them the required thirty knots and they were armed with the standard 12-pounder guns and two torpedo tubes. They carried a complement of 63 officers and men. In 1913 the three - like all other surviving three-funnelled destroyers of the "30-knotter" group - were re-classed as C-class destroyers.

References

• Lyon, David (2001) [1996]. The First Destroyers. Shipshape monographs. London: Caxton Editions. ISBN 1-84067-364-8.