HMS Phoenix was a sloop launched in 1879. She was wrecked off Prince Edward Island, Canada on 12 September 1882. Design The Doterel class was designed by Nathaniel Barnaby as a development of William Henry White's 1874 . The graceful clipper bow of the Ospreys was replaced by a vertical stem and the engines were more powerful. The hull was of composite construction, with wooden planks over an iron frame. Propulsion Power was provided by three cylindrical boilers, which supplied steam at to a two-cylinder horizontal compound-expansion steam engine driving a single screw. This arrangement produced and a top speed of . Armament Ships of the class were armed with two 7-inch (90 cwt) muzzle-loading rifled guns on pivoting mounts, and four 64-pounder muzzle-loading rifled guns (two on pivoting mounts, and two broadside). Four machine guns and one light gun completed the weaponry. Sail plan All the ships of the class were provided with a barque rig, that is, square-rigged foremast and mainmast, and fore-and-aft sails only on the mizzen mast. Crew Phoenix would have had a normal complement of 140–150 men. Construction Phoenix was ordered from Devonport Dockyard and laid down on 8 July 1878. She was launched on 16 September 1879 and commissioned on 20 April 1880. Service Sloops of her type were designed for patrolling Britain's extensive maritime empire, and were normally sent to foreign stations for extended periods. Typically the crews would serve commissions of several years before handing their ship over to a newly arrived crew and returning home in another ship. Phoenix was sent to the North America and West Indies Station. Wreck Phoenix left Gaspé, Quebec on the morning of 12 September 1882 under the command of Commander Hubert Grenfell. In company with , she was on her way to Canso, Nova Scotia. The wind was a north-east gale and the sea was thick with rain squalls. As she approached East Point from the north-west, under short sail and in the dark, the distance to East Point Light was judged to be 4 or 5 miles. In fact, the distance was deceptive, and with the tidal stream carrying the ship towards East Point at as much as , the ship was swept onto the East Point Reef in an approximate position of . The whole of 13 September was spent trying to save the ship, but the sea was too rough for boats