Volage-class corvette

Circa 1892 photograph of HMS Volage, lead ship of the class
Class overview
Name	Volage class
Builders	Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company, Blackwall, London
Operators	Royal Navy
Preceded by	Briton class
Succeeded by	Amethyst class
Built	1867–1871
Completed	2
Scrapped	2
General characteristics (as built)
Type	Iron screw corvette
Displacement	3,078 long tons (3,127 t)
Tons burthen	2,322 bm
Length	270 ft (82.3 m) (p/p)
Beam	42 ft 1 in (12.8 m)
Draught	21 ft 5 in (6.5 m)
Installed power	4,130 ihp (3,080 kW)
Propulsion	1 × shaft 1 × 2-cylinder steam engine 5 × rectangular boilers
Sail plan	Ship rig
Speed	15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Range	2,000 nmi (3,700 km; 2,300 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement	340
Armament	6 × 7-inch rifled muzzle-loading guns 4 × 6.3-inch 64-pounder rifled muzzle-loading guns

The Volage class was a group of two screw corvettes built for the Royal Navy in the late 1860s. Both ships spent the bulk of their active service abroad. Volage spent most of her first commission assigned to the Detached or Flying Squadron circumnavigating the world and then carried a party of astronomers to the Kerguelen Islands to observe the Transit of Venus in 1874. The ship was then assigned as the senior officer's ship in South American waters until she was transferred to the Training Squadron during the 1880s.

Active served as the commodore's ship on the Cape of Good Hope and West Africa Station and her crew served ashore in both the Third Anglo-Ashanti and Zulu Wars. She was assigned to the Training Squadron in 1885 after a period in reserve. The sisters were paid off in 1898–99 and sold for scrap in 1904 and 1906, respectively.