HMS Sidon (1846)

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HMS Sidon was a first-class paddle frigate designed by Sir Charles Napier. Her name commemorated his attack on the port of Sidon in 1840 in the Syrian War. Her keel was laid down on 26 May 1845 at Deptford Dockyard, and she was launched on 26 May 1846. She had a fairly short career for a warship, but it included the rescue of the crew of the sinking P&O ship Ariel on 28 May 1848, and a trip up the Nile that same year, when her passengers included the explorer and botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker.

View of Sevastopol from SidonTemplate:'s deck in 1855 in the Crimean War

Sidon served in the Black Sea in the Crimean War, 1854–55 under the command of Captain George Goldsmith. In April 1854, in company with HMS Firebrand (Captain William Houston Stewart), she blockaded the coast from Kavarna to the mouths of the River Danube.<ref>Russian War, 1854, Baltic and Black Sea, Official Correspondence edited by D. Bonner-Smith and Captain A. C. Dewar, Navy Records Society, 1943, pp. 245–6, 251–2.</ref> In September, in the Allied invasion of the Crimea, she was assigned to escorting the French troop transports, and assisted the French line-of-battleship Algiers, which had gone aground in Eupatoria Bay.<ref>Russian War, 1854, Baltic and Black Sea, Official Correspondence pp. 310–11.</ref> She was then sent to monitor Russian movements around Odessa, and on 4 October attacked a marching column of 12,000 men on their way to the Crimea. On this occasion Russian rocket hit her funnel.<ref>Russian War, 1854, Baltic and Black Sea, Official Correspondence, pp. 334–6.</ref>

Template:Stack On 11 June 1860, Sidon ran aground at "Pomong Harbour", Cape Colony. Repairs cost £678.<ref name=HT100573>Template:Cite news</ref> She returned to the east coast of Africa and in 1861 destroyed the Royal Navy tender Enchantress, which had wrecked on 20 February 1861 on a reef off Mayotte in the Mozambique Channel.Template:Citation needed

Fate

Sidon was sold for breaking up on 15 July 1864 to Castle and Beech.

References

• {{#invoke:template wrapper|{{#if:|list|wrap}}|_template=cite book

|_exclude=case, year, _debug
| last1 = Colledge
| first1 = J. J. 
| author-link1= J. J. Colledge
| last2 = Warlow
| first2 = Ben
| date = 2006
| orig-date = 1969
| title = Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of All Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy from the 15th Century to the Present
| edition = Rev.
| location = London
| publisher = Chatham Publishing
| isbn = 978-1-86176-281-8
| OCLC = 67375475

}}

• Lyon, David & Winfield, Rif The Sail and Steam Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815–1889. Chatham Publishing, 2004. Template:ISBN.