HMS Plumper (1848)

HMS Plumper (right), with HMS Termagant (left) and HMS Alert (background) at Esquimalt in the late 1850s
History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Plumper
Ordered	25 April 1847 Re-ordered 12 August 1847
Builder	Portsmouth dockyard
Cost	£20,446
Laid down	October 1847
Launched	5 April 1848
Commissioned	17 December 1848
Fate	Sold for breaking 2 June 1865
General characteristics
Type	Screw sloop
Displacement	577 tons
Tons burthen	490 24/94 bm
Length	140 ft 0 in (42.7 m) gundeck, 121 ft 10.5 in (37.1 m) Keel for tonnage
Beam	27 ft 10 in (8.5 m) maximum, 27 ft 6 in (8.4 m) for tonnage
Draught	11 ft 4+1⁄2 in (3.5 m) mean
Depth of hold	14 ft 6 in (4.4 m)
Installed power	148 ihp (110 kW)
Propulsion	2-cylinder vertical single-expansion steam engine Single screw
Sail plan	Barque rig
Speed	7.4 kn (13.7 km/h) under power
Complement	100
Armament	As built:  8 guns: 2 × 32-pdr (56cwt) muzzle-loading smooth-bore guns 6 × 32-pdr (25cwt) muzzle-loading smooth-bore guns From October 1856:  12 guns

HMS Plumper was part of the 1847 programme, she was ordered on 25 April as a steam schooner from Woolwich Dockyard with the name Pincher. However, the reference Ships of the Royal Navy, by J.J. College, (c) 2020 there is no entry that associates this name to this build.^[1] The vessel was reordered on 12 August as an 8-gun sloop as designed by John Fincham, Master Shipwright at Portsmouth. Launched in 1848, she served three commissions, firstly on the West Indies and North American Station, then on the West Africa Station and finally in the Pacific Station. It was during her last commission as a survey ship that she left her most enduring legacy; in charting the west coast of British Columbia she left her name and those of her ship's company scattered across the charts of the region. She paid off for the last time in 1861 and was finally sold for breaking up in 1865.

Plumper was the fifth named vessel since it was introduced for a 12-gun gunvessel launched by Randall of Rotherhithe on 17 May 1794 and sold in January 1802.^[1]