no Book of Steamships 



Unlike the Monitor the Royal Sovereign 

 was given 6 ft. of freeboard. In the same 

 year that the Royal Sovereign took the 

 seas as a turret ship, the Admiralty built 

 a coast defence ship named the Prince 

 Albert on the turret principle. She was 

 of iron construction, 240 ft. long, beam 

 48 ft., with a rather deep draught which 

 was rather less pronounced forward 

 than aft. Her displacement was 3,687 

 tons. 



The next entry on our "family tree" 

 is the ill-fated Captain, 1870. She and 

 the Monarch were built on the turret 

 principle, and they were intended to test 

 various innovations. In some respects 

 sister ships, there was a big difference in 

 their freeboard, the Captain having the 

 6 ft. of the Royal Sovereign, whilst the 

 Monarch had more than double that 

 amount. 



Within a year of their building they 

 were cruising together under sail in the 

 English Channel, when they encountered 



