French ship Algésiras (1855)
Algésiras was a second-rank, 90-gun, steam-powered ship of the line built for the French Navy in the 1850s, lead ship of her class of five ships. The ship participated in the Second Italian War of Independence in 1859. Description. The "Algésiras"-class ships were repeats of the pioneering ship of the line and were also designed by naval architect Henri Dupuy de Lôme. They had a length at the waterline of , a beam of and a depth of hold of . The ships displaced and had a draught of at deep load. Their crew numbered  913 officers and ratings. The primary difference between "Napoléon" and the "Algésiras" class was that the boilers of the latter ships were moved forward of the engines. They were powered by a pair of two-cylinder horizontal-return connecting-rod steam engines, also designed by Dupuy de Lôme, that drove the single propeller shaft using steam provided by eight boilers. The engines were rated at 900 nominal horsepower and produced . During her sea trials, "Algésiras" reached a sustained speed of . The ships were fitted with three masts and ship rigged. The armament of the "Algésiras"-class ships consisted of eighteen 36 -pounder () smoothbore cannon and sixteen Paixhans guns on the lower gundeck and thirty-four 30-pounder cannon on the upper gundeck. On the quarterdeck and forecastle were twenty Paixhans guns and a pair of 163 mm rifled muzzle-loading guns. Career. In 1859, she took part in the blockade of Venice and various operations in the Mediterranean during the Second Italian War of Independence. She was decommissioned in 1865 and used as a transport. She was later used as a school ship. On 25 November 1906, she was destroyed in Toulon by an accidental fire.