SMS Vineta ( 1897 ) SMS " Vineta " was a protected cruiser of the " Victoria Louise " class , built for the German Imperial Navy ( " Kaiserliche Marine " ) in the 1890s . " Vineta " was laid down at the AG Vulcan shipyard in 1895 , launched in April 1897 , and commissioned into the Navy in July 1898 . The ship , named for the semi - legendary medieval town of Vineta , was armed with a battery of two 21 cm guns and eight 15 cm guns and had a top speed of . " Vineta " served abroad in the American Station for the first several years of her career . While on station in the Americas , she participated in the Venezuela Crisis of 1902 – 1903 and bombarded several Venezuelan fortresses . She returned to Germany in 1905 and was used as a torpedo training ship in 1908 . She was modernized in 1909 – 1911 , after which she was used as a school ship for naval cadets . In November 1912 , she participated in an international naval protest of the First Balkan War . At the outbreak of World War I , " Vineta " was mobilized into the 5th Scouting Group , but served in front - line duty only briefly . She was used as a barracks ship after 1915 , and ultimately sold for scrapping in 1920 . Design . " Vineta " was ordered under the contract name " M " and was laid down at the Imperial Dockyard in Danzig in 1896 . She was launched on 9 December 1897 , after which fitting - out work commenced . She was commissioned into the German navy on 13 September 1899 . The ship was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of forward . She displaced at full combat load . Her propulsion system consisted of three vertical 4 - cylinder triple expansion engines powered by twelve coal - fired Belleville boiler s . Her engines provided a top speed of and a range of approximately at . She had a crew of 31 officers and 446 enlisted men . The ship was armed with two 21 cm SK L / 40 guns in single turrets , one forward and one aft . The guns were supplied with supplied with 58 rounds of ammunition each . They had a range of . " Vineta " also carried eight 15 cm SK L / 40 guns . Four were mounted in turrets amidships and the other four were placed in casemate s . These guns had a range of . She also carried ten 8 . 8 cm SK L / 35 guns . The gun armament was rounded out by machine guns . She was also equipped with three torpedo tube s with eight torpedoes , two launchers were mounted on the broadside and the third was in the bow , all below the waterline . Service history . Following her commissioning in 1899 , " Vineta " was sent overseas . Her commander was " Kapitän zur See " ( Captain at Sea ) Da Fonseca - Wollheim . The ship was assigned to the American Station , along with the small cruiser and the gunboat . In May 1900 , " Vineta " inspected Margarita Island for its potential as a naval base , but the Germans determined the port was insufficient for their purposes . In late 1901 , " Vineta " and the small cruiser were sent to Venezuela in a show of force to compel the Venezuelan government to make reparations for grievances related to internal conflicts in the 1890s . Starting in December 1902 , " Vineta " participated in the German naval contingent in the Venezuela Crisis of 1902 – 1903 . A British merchant ship had been boarded and its crew arrested by Venezuelan forces on 13 December ; in response , British forces bombarded the forts at Puerto Cabello , and enlisted " Vineta " in the attack . " Vineta " was tasked with shelling the fortresses " Libertador " and " Vigia " . In January 1903 , the gunboat attacked Fort San Carlos in Maracaibo , but was repulsed . " Vineta " therefore was sent to silence the guns on 21 January . During the bombardment of the fort , " Vineta " set it afire and destroyed the fortress In 1903 , one of " Vineta " s 15 cm ammunition magazines exploded , but did not cause major damage to the ship . The accident had significant long - term consequences , however , as it exposed the volatility of German propellant charges . The Germans therefore reworked the composition of the propellant , which was in service by 1914 . This new , more stable propellant saved several German battlecruisers from destruction when their magazines were penetrated by British shells during World War I . In January 1904 , the ship visited New Orleans with the rest of the American Squadron , which at that time included " Falke " , " Panther " , and . " Vineta " was detached from the American Squadron and returned to Germany in 1905 . She was used as a torpedo training ship starting in 1908 . In 1909 , she went to dry dock at the Imperial Dockyard in Danzig for a refit , during which she was re - boilered . " Vineta " originally had three stacks , and during the modernization they were trunked into two funnels . The refit was finished by 1911 , at which point " Vineta " became a cadet training ship . The ship cruised in the western Mediterranean in the autumn of 1912 , along with her sister . The old cruiser was also in the region . As the Bulgarian army was poised to march on Constantinople during the First Balkan War , the Great Powers deployed a naval force to ensure the safety of foreign nationals in the Ottoman Empire . " Vineta " and the battlecruiser were sent to Constantinople as part of this force . The international fleet sent ashore a force of around 3 , 000 officers and men . The force was withdrawn to Crete after a ceasefire seemed imminent , but by February fighting again broke out , and the island was seized by Greece . On 23 January 1914 , " Vineta " was in Haiti , when Michel Oreste abdicated from the presidency . He sought refuge aboard the ship , which landed marines along with the American cruiser in Port - au - Prince to prevent rioting in the capital . " Vineta " had a short career during World War I . At the outbreak of hostilities , she was briefly mobilized into the 5th Scouting Group , which was tasked with training cadets in the Baltic Sea . By the end of 1914 , however , the ships were again removed from service . She was then put into service as a coastal defense ship . After 1915 , she was withdrawn from front - line duty again and employed as a barracks ship at the Imperial Dockyard in Kiel . She was stricken from the naval register on 6 December 1919 and sold to ship - breakers in Harburg . She was scrapped the following year .