Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Danish cruiser 'Hekla', 1890


Hekla was built at the Naval Dockyard in Copenhagen with machinery from Burmeister & Wain which provided 3,000 hp. Hekla was designed as a smaller version of the previous cross Valkyrie and was followed by the two almost identical cruisers Geiser and Heimda. They were not intended to be actual combat ships, but would instead replace the ships which had become too old and slow for hard service as patrol vessels in the North Atlantic. Hekla was the only one of the three that had 15 cm guns of the same model as on the Valkyria, with a firing rate of only about one shot per minute.

Her service as a cruiser ceased in 1913, the armament was removed and Hekla was rebuilt into depot and accommodation ship for submarines. In 1915 the machinery was removed, but Hekla remained in use up until 1955, when she was sold for scrap

Length: 72.3 metres
Width: 10.4 metres
Depth: 3.5 metres
Deplacement: 1,322 tons
Speed 17.1 knots
Crew: 156

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