HMS Thames was a protected cruiser built for the Royal Navy (RN) in the 1880s. The ship was placed in reserve upon her completion in 1888 and was converted into a submarine depot ship in 1903. She was sold out of the navy in 1920 and was purchased by a South African businessman to serve as a training ship for naval cadets under the name SATS General Botha. The ship arrived in South Africa in 1921 and began training her first class of cadets in Simon's Town the following year. General Botha continued to train cadets for the first several years of World War II, but the RN took over the ship in 1942 for use as an accommodation ship under her original name. She was scuttled by gunfire in 1947 and is now a diveable wreck. Design and description The Mersey-class cruisers were improved versions of the Leander class with more armour and no sailing rig on a smaller displacement. Like their predecessors, they were intended to protect British shipping. The cruisers had a length between perpendiculars of , a beam of and a draught of . They displaced . The ships were powered by a pair of two-cylinder horizontal, direct-acting, compound-expansion steam engines, each driving one shaft, which were designed to produce a total of and a maximum speed of using steam provided by a dozen cylindrical boilers with forced draught. The Mersey class carried enough coal to give them a range of at a speed of . The ships' complement was 300 to 350 officers and ratings. Their main armament consisted of two breech-loading (BL) guns, one each fore and aft on pivot mounts. Their secondary armament was ten BL guns, five on each broadside in sponsons. Protection against torpedo boats was provided by three quick-firing (QF) 6-pounder Hotchkiss guns and three QF 3-pounder Hotchkiss guns. The ship was also armed with a pair of submerged 14-inch (356 mm) torpedo tubes and carried a pair of 14-inch torpedo carriages. The Mersey-class ships were protected by a lower armoured deck that was on the flat and on the slope. It sloped down at the bow to reinforce the ram. The armoured sides of the conning tower were thick. Construction and career Thames was the sixth ship of her name to serve in the Royal Navy. She was laid down on 14 April 1884 by Pembroke Dockyard in No.