with her half-sister , was to tow a floating drydock from England to Madeira where it would be picked up by and and taken to Bermuda. The ships departed the Nore on 23 June 1869, loaded down with of coal stowed in bags on their gun decks, and transferred the floating dock 11 days later after an uneventful voyage. Agincourt was assigned to the Channel Squadron upon her return and she became the flagship of the second-in-command of the fleet until she began a refit in 1873. 1871 grounding on Pearl Rock It was during this assignment that she suffered a near-catastrophe when she ran aground on Pearl Rock, near Gibraltar on 1 July 1871 and nearly sank. Agincourt was leading the inshore column of ships, contrary to normal practice where the senior flagship lead the inshore column, and gently ran aground sideways when the senior flagship's navigator failed to compensate for the set of the tide. Warrior, immediately following her, nearly collided with her, but managed to sheer off in time. Agincourt was stuck fast and had to be lightened; her guns were removed and much of her coal was tossed overboard before she was towed off by , commanded by Lord Gilford, four days later. Heavy weather set in the night after Agincourt was freed and it would have wrecked her if she had still been aground. Both the fleet commander and his deputy were relieved of their commands as a result of the incident. The ship was repaired in Devonport at a cost of £1,195 and Captain J.O. Hopkins assumed command in September with Commander Charles Penrose-Fitzgerald as his executive officer. Hopkins later commented: "We turned the Agincourt from the noisiest and the worst disciplined ship in the squadron into the quietest and the smartest; and a few months after we commissioned we went out to the Mediterranean for the Lord Clyde court-martial, and beat the whole Mediterranean fleet in their drills and exercises, which was a great triumph." In 1873, Vice Admiral Sir Geoffrey Hornby, commander of the Channel Squadron, transferred his flag to Agincourt as her sister Minotaur, his former flagship, was taken in hand for a refit that lasted until 1875. That year Agincourt was paid off in turn for a refit and re-armament that lasted until 1877. During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, the government became concerned that the Russians might advance on