HMS Adventure (1904)

HMS Adventure was the name ship of the two Adventure-class scout cruisers that the Royal Navy ordered in the first decade of the twentieth century, built by Armstrong Whitworth at Elswick. She was laid down on 7 January 1904 and launched on 8 September, and her original name would have been Eddystone. Scout cruisers were meant to lead destroyer flotillas in torpedo attacks and support them, but turbine destroyers soon outpaced them. She was 374 feet long, displaced about 2,670 long tons, and on trials made 25.4 knots from two triple-expansion engines and a dozen Yarrow boilers. She carried ten 12-pounder guns, later replaced by nine 4-inch guns. After two years in reserve she led destroyer flotillas from 1907, and in the First World War she patrolled the Channel, guarded against Zeppelins on the Humber and became flagship at Queenstown. On Boxing Day 1915 she rescued the crew of the steamer Huronian. She was paid off in August 1919 and sold for scrap in March 1920.