Warrior – the ultimate deterrent

Warrior – the ultimate deterrent. . , Fitting Out , The morning after her launch, Warrior was towed to the Victoria Dock basin, where Penn's of Greenwich installed the most powerful machinery ever put in a warship. With the engines and boilers in place the masts were then lowered into the ship allowing the process of rigging to begin. , The other tasks needed to convert the empty hull carried on, including the fitting of more than 200 armour plates, weighing more than 900 tons in total. , It was during this time that Charles Dickens visited the ship, writing later "… a black, vicious ugly customer as ever I saw. Whale like in size, and with as terrible a row of incisor teeth as ever closed on a French frigate.” , First Commission , In May 1861 Captain Arthur Cochrane, the third son of Admiral Lord Thomas Cochrane, was appointed to command. He commissioned the ship into the Royal Navy on 1st August. , Warrior then moved to further down the Thames to embark guns and other necessary stores. On 19th September, with the finishing touches made, Warrior left for Portsmouth. , Sea trials led to minor modifications and, in 1862, she was ready for active service in the Channel Squadron, patrolling coastal waters and making voyages to Lisbon and Gibraltar. , In 1863, HMS Warrior and other ships in the Channel Squadron took part in a 12-week round Britain cruise, visiting many different ports. As many as six thousand visitors a day came to marvel at this symbol of British naval power. , Although not the first iron ship, nor the first to use both sail and steam, Warrior combined these and other technological developments together and presented the greatest advance in ship design for centuries. She was the ultimate deterrent and never fired a shot in anger. , Did you know?... In April 1863 John Arbuthnot Fisher, later First Sea Lord and responsible for the development of Dreadnought battleship, joined Warrior as Gunnery Officer