Havock-class destroyer

The Havock class was a pair of torpedo boat destroyers built for the British Royal Navy by Yarrow and Company at its London yard and completed in 1893. HMS Havock and HMS Hornet were the first torpedo boat destroyers completed for the Royal Navy, although a pair of boats from J.I. Thornycroft had been ordered five days earlier. Havock was built with conventional locomotive boilers and two closely spaced funnels, while Hornet had eight water-tube boilers and four widely spaced funnels. Havock was launched on 12 August 1893, and her trials showed that she could keep up with battleships, although her bow torpedo tube proved useless because the ship usually outran her own torpedo and the tube made the bows dig into the sea. Both ships served in home waters and were broken up, Havock in 1912 and Hornet in 1909. Four similar boats were later built by Yarrow for the Argentine Navy.