upper deck amidships, but these proved to be untenable when the ship's guns were fired. The armour was backed by the sides of the ship which were thick. Service history HMS Ocean was laid down on 23 August 1860 as a wooden two-deck, 90-gun ship of the line by Devonport Dockyard. The Admiralty ordered on 5 June 1861 that she be lengthened , cut down one deck, and converted to an armoured frigate for the price of £298,851. The ship was launched on 19 March 1863 and commissioned in July 1866, but was not completed until 6 September 1866. Ocean initially served with the Channel Fleet, but she was almost immediately transferred to the Mediterranean, and from there to the Far East; she arrived in Batavia (now Jakarta) on 15 October 1867. She was the only armoured ship ever to double the Cape of Good Hope under canvas alone. During this voyage Ocean set a record in having sailed on 26 August 1867 with cold boilers, the greatest distance ever covered under sail power by a British ironclad. Ocean served on the China Station for five years, 1867–1872, without docking once. The ship relieved the old two-decker as station flagship in 1869 when Vice-Admiral Henry Kellett took command; a new crew was carried out by and Captain William Hewett, VC assumed command of the ship. In 1871, Ocean ran down and sunk a large Chinese junk at Amoy. Ocean was relieved in turn by in 1872, but drew too much water to pass through the Suez Canal. The Admiralty therefore ordered that she return home via the Cape of Good Hope using steam. The ship's bottom was very foul and she averaged only 4.5 knots (8.3 km/h) during the voyage. Ocean had lost a lot of sheathing during her time in the Far East and much of her planking was in a bad state. The ship was therefore relegated to dockyard reserve until sold in 1882. Footnotes References Bulwark-class battleships (1859) Prince Consort-class ironclads Ships built in Plymouth, Devon 1863 ships Victorian-era battleships of the United Kingdom