Note

Date 17 December 2002

Event ID 883586

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Note

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/883586

Length: 475ft (144.8m)

Beam: 68ft 6ins (20.9m)

Displacement: 10,850 tons

Propulsion: coal-fired triple expansion (4-cylinder): two screws: 21,000hp; 22.25 kts

Guns: 4 x 7.5 ins (190mm); 6 x 6 ins (152mm); 12 x 12 pdr and smaller

Torpedo tubes: 2 x 18 ins (457mm)

Armour: belt 6 ins (152mm); deck 2 ins (51mm)

Complement: 655/700

This armoured cruiser of the six-strong Devonshire class was built by Scott's at Greenock, being launched in March 1904 and completed in 1905. She served (with other members of the class) in the Third Cruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet and saw action at the Battle of the Heligoland Bight before being wrecked off Eastern Scotland in October 1915.

The location cited for this loss lies almost immediately SW of the Bell Rock lighthouse (NO72NE 1), where a dangerous wreck is charted in less than 10m depth of water. The isolated reef of the Bell Rock rises from water between 25 and 30m deep about 10nm (18.5 km) E of the Abertay light (the outer limit of the Tay estuary), the same distance SE of Arbroath and 11.5nm (21.3km) NE of Fife Ness.

(More detailed specification cited by Jane).

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 17 December 2002.

H M Le Fleming 1961; [Jane] 2001.

HO chart no. 190 (1978, revised 1996).