Osman Digna
"Gannet" recommissioned at Sheerness on 3 September 1885 and sailed to join the Mediterranean Fleet. She was initially used to support the forces of Major-General Sir Gerald Graham during the first Suakin Expedition in the Sudan. Anti-slavery patrols took her into the Red Sea, searching suspicious ships. On 11 September 1888, she was recalled from a mid-commission refit at Malta and ordered to relieve at the besieged port of Suakin, Sudan. On 17 September she engaged anti-Anglo-Egyptian forces led by Osman Digna for nearly a month, firing 200 main armament shells and nearly 1,200 Nordenfelt rounds. "Gannet" was relieved by on 15 October and paid off at Malta on 1 November 1888.