Huáscar (ship)

Huáscar in Talcahuano, Chile.
Career
Builded at:	Birkenhead, Great Britain
Ordered:	August 4, 1864
Launched:	October 7, 1865
Commissioned:	8 November 1866
Decommissioned:	---
Fate:	Transformed as a memorial ship
General Characteristics
Displacement:	1,180 t
Length:	66.90 m
Beam:	10.90 m
Draught:	5.57 m
Propulsion:	300 hp
Fuel:	Coal
Speed:	12 knots
Complement:	170
Armament:	1 Gatling Machine gun .44. 1 / 12 pounds cannon 2 / 40 pounds cannons 2 / 300 punds cannons

Huáscar is a small Peruvian ironclad turret ship, similar to the monitor type. It was built in Britain in 1865.

On May 29 1877 it fought the inconclusive Battle of Pacocha against two British vessels, the large iron frigate Shah and the wooden corvette Amethyst. This battle saw the first use in anger of the newly-invented torpedo.

In May 1879, Chilean captain Arturo Prat of Esmeralda, an old wooden sailing ship dating from the Independence Wars of the 1820s, died on the deck after an unequal battle with Huáscar, and a heroic but futile attempt to board. On October 8 1879 it was captured by the Chilean navy at the Battle of Angamos, during which most of Huascar's crew died, including Admiral Miguel Grau, her commanding officer and a brilliant naval commander.

It is now a floating museum-memorial and a commissioned ship in the Chilean navy, and one of the few surviving examples of its type. It is berthed in the port of Talcahuano, Chile, one of Chile's national treasures. Huáscar is considered the tomb of Admiral Grau, Peru's highest military hero, whose body was never found.

External links

• El Huascar (in Spanish)
• Pre-Dreadnought Preservation The Huáscar
• model of the Huáscar (360-degree spin around)