HMS Audacious ( 1869 ) HMS " Audacious " was the lead ship of the s built for the Royal Navy in the late 1860s . They were designed as second - class ironclads suitable for use on foreign stations and the ship spent the bulk of her career on the China Station . She was decommissioned in 1894 and hulked in 1902 for use as a training ship . The ship was towed to Scapa Flow after the beginning of the First World War to be used as a receiving ship and then to Rosyth after the war ended . " Audacious " was sold for scrap in 1929 . Design and description . The " Audacious " - class ironclads were laid out as central battery ironclads with the armament concentrated amidships . They were the first British ironclads to have a two - deck battery with the upper deck guns sponsoned out over the sides of the hull . The ships were fitted with a short , plough - shaped ram and their crew numbered 450 officers and men . HMS " Audacious " was long between perpendiculars . She had a beam of and a draught of . The ship was first British ironclad to be completed below her designed displacement ; this meant that she was top heavy and required of cement ballast to raise her metacentric height . " Audacious " , and her sisters , were the steadiest gun platforms among the large British ironclads of their era . " Audacious " was given an experimental zinc sheath for her hull in an attempt to reduce biofouling that proved unsuccessful . Propulsion . " Audacious " had two 2 - cylinder horizontal return connecting rod steam engines made by Ravenhill , each driving a single propeller . The bronze four - bladed Mangin propellers were not arranged in the usual radial cross shape , but rather in two pairs , one behind the other , on an elongated boss in an attempt to reduce their drag when the ship used her sails . They were later replaced by two - bladed Griffiths propellers . Six rectangular boilers provided steam to the engine at a working pressure of . The engines produced a total of during sea trials on 21 October 1870 and " Audacious " reached a maximum speed of . The ship carried of coal , enough to steam at . The " Audacious " - class ironclads were initially ship rigged and had a sail area of . After the loss of in a storm in 1870 , the ships were modified with a barque rig which reduced their sail area to . They were slow under sail , only , partly due to the drag of the twin screws , and their shallow draft and flat bottom meant that they were leeward ly when close - hauled . The three ships , " Audacious " , , and , with balanced rudders were described as unmanageable under sail alone . Armament . HMS " Audacious " was armed with ten 9 - inch and four 64 - pounder rifled muzzle - loading guns . Six of the guns were mounted on the main deck , three on each side , while the other four guns were fitted above them on the upper deck . Their gun ports were in each corner of the upper battery and could be worked in all weathers , unlike like the guns on the main deck below them . The 64 - pounder guns were mounted on the upper deck , outside the battery , as chase gun s . The ship also had six 20 - pounder Armstrong guns for use as . The shell of the 14 - calibre 9 - inch gun weighed while the gun itself weighed . It had a muzzle velocity of and was credited with the ability to penetrate a nominal of wrought iron armour at the muzzle . The 16 - calibre 64 - pounder gun weighed and fired a , shell that had a muzzle velocity of . In 1878 " Audacious " received four torpedo launchers that were carried on the main deck , outside the armoured battery . When the ship was refitted in 1889 – 90 she received eight 4 - inch breech - loading guns as well as four quick - firing 6 - pounder Hotchkiss and six 3 - pounder Hotchkiss guns for defence against torpedo boat s . Armour . " Audacious " had a complete waterline belt of wrought iron that was thick amidships and tapered to thick at the bow and stern . It only protected the main deck and reached above the waterline at full load and below . The guns were protected by a section of 8 - inch armour , long , with a transverse bulkhead forward and a bulkhead to the rear . The armour was backed by of teak . The total weight of her armour was . Service . HMS " Audacious " was ordered on 29 April 1867 from Robert Napier in Govan , Glasgow . She was laid down on 26 June 1867 and launched on 27 February 1869 in a gale . The winds caught the rear of the ship as she was about halfway down the slipway and twisted her enough that some plates and frames of her bottom were damaged . The ship was completed on 10 September 1870 and commissioned the following month . She cost £256 , 291 to build . Upon completion she became guard ship of the First Reserve at Kingstown , Ireland ( modern Dún Laoghaire ) , but was transferred the following year to Hull where she remained until 1874 . The ship was ordered to the Far East that year to serve as the flagship for the China Station under the flag of Vice - Admiral Sir Alfred Phillips Ryder . Despite the presence of escorting tugs , " Audacious " grounded twice while she was transiting through the Suez Canal . She relieved her sister in Singapore , and later collided with a merchant ship during a typhoon in Yokohama . " Iron Duke " relieved her in turn in 1878 . " Audacious " returned to her previous post in Hull in 1879 , relieving . She served there until she began a lengthy refit which included new boilers and the addition of a poop deck . The ship ' s refit was complete in March 1883 and she again relieved " Iron Duke " as flagship of the China Station later that year . " Audacious " remained there until 1889 when she returned to Chatham where she was refitted , rearmed and replaced her masts and rigging with simple pole masts fitted with fighting tops . Upon the completion of her refit in 1890 she returned to Hull for the third time until the ship was decommissioned in 1894 . " Audacious " was relegated to 4th class reserve until her engines were removed and she was hulked as a boy ' s training ship in 1902 in Plymouth . In April 1904 she was renamed " Fisgard " ( after the French translation of the Welsh town Fishguard ) . The ship was towed to Scapa Flow in 1914 after the start of the First World War to be used as a receiving ship and was renamed " Imperieuse " . In 1919 she was towed to Rosyth and renamed " Victorious " . On 15 March 1929 the ship was sold to Ward of Inverkeithing for scrap .