HMS Thunderer was one of two turret ships built for the Royal Navy in the 1870s. She suffered two serious accidents before the decade was out and gained a reputation as an unlucky ship for several years afterward. The ship was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1878 and was reduced to reserve in 1881 before being recommissioned in 1885. Thunderer returned home in 1887 and was again placed in reserve. She rejoined the Mediterranean Fleet in 1891, but was forced to return to the UK by boiler problems the following year. The ship became a coast guard ship in Wales in 1895 and was again placed in reserve in 1900. Thunderer was taken out of service in 1907 and sold for scrap in 1909. Background and description The Devastation class was designed as an enlarged, ocean-going, version of the earlier . The ships had a length between perpendiculars of and were long overall. They had a beam of , and a draught of . The Devastation-class ships displaced . Their crew consisted of 358 officers and ratings. They proved to be steady gun platforms and good seaboats, albeit quite wet forward. Their low forecastle caused them problems with head seas and limited their speed in such conditions. Thunderer had two Humphry & Tennant two-cylinder horizontal direct-acting steam engines using steam provided by eight rectangular boilers; each engine driving a single propeller. The engines were designed to produce a total of for a speed of , but Thunderer reached a maximum speed of from during her sea trials. The ship carried a maximum of of coal, enough to steam at . [[File:Thunderer turret - King 1875.png|thumb|left|Thunderer'''s forward turret, as first constructed with manual ramming]] The Devastation class was armed with four RML rifled muzzle-loading guns, one pair in each of the gun turrets positioned fore and aft of the superstructure. Shortly after completion, Thunderers forward turret's weapons were replaced by more powerful RML guns.Hodges, p. 13 While both gun turrets were rotated by steam power, the new forward guns were loaded by hydraulic power, unlike the original guns which were hand worked. Thunderer was the first ship to have hydraulic loading gear. From 1874, the forward turret alone was converted to hydraulic power operation for training (turret traverse), elevation and ramming. This allowed the turret crew to be reduced from 48 to 28; the aft turret remaining hand-worked as a