shaft, using steam supplied by six cylindrical boilers. The engines were rated at and gave the ship a speed of . The ship carried enough coal to give her a range of at . Unebi was fitted with a full barque rig with three masts and had a sail area of . Armament and protection The ship's main battery consisted of four Krupp 35-caliber guns, mounted on the upper deck in single mounts sponsoned out over the side of the hull. Most of her secondary armament of seven Krupp 35-caliber guns were mounted amidships on the upper deck, three on each broadside. The remaining gun was mounted as a bow-chaser underneath the short forecastle deck. Defense against torpedo boats was provided by a pair of quick-firing Nordenfelt guns, one mounted on the forecastle and the other on the stern. Short-range defensive weapons consisted of 10 quadruple-barreled Nordenfelt guns and four 10-barreled Nordenfelt machine guns, distributed about the ship. Unebi was also fitted with four tubes for Schwartzkopff torpedoes. Her armor was limited to the lower deck that covered the full length of the ship and her conning tower was protected by of armor. Construction and loss Unebi, named after Mount Unebi in Nara prefecture was laid down on 27 May 1884 at Forges et Chantiers de la Gironde's shipyard in Le Havre, the day before the contract was signed. The ship was launched on 6 April 1886, with Prince Fushimi in attendance and she was completed on 18 October 1886 at a cost of ¥1,812,673, far more than the ¥1,093,000 price in the original contract. With a mixed crew of Japanese sailors and shipyard employees aboard, Unebi attempted to depart Le Havre for Japan on the 18th, but had to turn back when she ran into a storm that caused her to roll so heavily that her safety was endangered. The ship set sail on the following day and encountered weaker storms in the Mediterranean and after passing through the Suez Canal. A stronger storm caused Unebi to return to Aden, Yemen, where she off-loaded two of her main guns in an effort to improve her stability. After arriving in Singapore, the ship departed on 3 December, bound for Tokyo Bay, where she was expected to arrive on 12 or 13 December. Unebi disappeared without a trace somewhere in the South China Sea. No survivors and no wreckage were ever