HMS Mariner by an unknown artist
History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Mariner
Builder	Devonport Dockyard
Cost	Hull: £37,156, Machinery £12,841[1]
Laid down	8 January 1883
Launched	23 June 1884
Commissioned	19 March 1885[1]
Fate	Lent to the Liverpool Salvage Association in 1917 Laid up 1922 to 1929 Sold on 19 February 1929
General characteristics
Displacement	970 tons
Length	167 ft (51 m)
Beam	32 ft (9.8 m)
Draught	14 ft (4.3 m)[1]
Installed power	850 ihp (630 kW)
Propulsion	2-cylinder horizontal compound expansion steam engine Single screw[1]
Sail plan	Barque-rigged
Speed	11+1⁄2 knots (21.3 km/h)
Range	Approximately 2,100 nmi (3,900 km) at 10 kn (19 km/h)[1]
Complement	126
Armament	8 × 5-inch 38cwt breech-loading guns 1 × light gun 8 × machine guns[1]

HMS Mariner was the name-ship of the Royal Navy Mariner-class composite screw gunvessel of 8 guns.^[2]

Designed by Nathaniel Barnaby,^[1] the Royal Navy Director of Naval Construction, her hull was of composite construction; that is, iron keel, frames, stem and stern posts with wooden planking. She was fitted with a 2-cylinder horizontal compound expansion steam engine driving a single screw, produced by Hawthorn Leslie. She was rigged with three masts, with square rig on the fore- and main-masts, making her a barque-rigged vessel. Her keel was laid at Devonport Royal Dockyard on 8 January 1883 and she was launched on 23 June 1884. Her entire class were re-classified in November 1884 as sloops before they entered service.^[1]

Mariner was commissioned into the Royal Navy on 19 March 1885. She became a boom defence vessel in 1903 and was lent to the Liverpool Salvage Association as a salvage vessel in 1917, with her sister-ship Reindeer. She was laid up from 1922 to 1929 and sold to Hughes Bolckow of Blyth on 19 March 1929.^[1]

• Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8.