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	HMS Grappler
History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Grappler
Ordered	4 October 1855
Builder	Money Wigram & Sons, Blackwall, London
Laid down	12 October 1855
Launched	29 March 1856
Out of service	Sold into mercantile service on 6 January 1868
Fate	Burnt, 3 May 1883. Broken up 1884.
General characteristics
Class and type	Albacore-class gunboat
Tons burthen	232 68/94 bm
Length	106 ft (32 m) (overall); 93 ft 2.5 in (28.410 m) (keel);
Beam	22 ft (6.7 m)
Draught	6 ft 6 in (1.98 m)
Installed power	60 nhp; 211 ihp;
Propulsion	1 set horizontal single expansion, direct-acting engine; 3 cylindrical boilers; Single screw;
Speed	7.5 knots (14 km/h) under engines
Complement	36-40
Armament	1 × 68-pounder (95cwt) MLSB gun on pivot; 1 × 32-pounder MLSB; 2 × 24-pounder howitzers on broadside trucks;

HMS Grappler was an Albacore-class gunboat of the Royal Navy. She served on what is now the British Columbia Coast from 1859 until sold into commercial service in 1868. She sank with significant loss of life as result of a fire in 1883.

Naval service

The Grappler was one of about 100 Albacore-class gunboats that the Admiralty had built to meet the needs of the Crimean War. Like the others of her class, she was completed as that war ended. The Admiralty dispatched her, along with her sister ship, Forward, to British Columbia following the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush in 1858. She sailed from England in August 1859 and reached Esquimalt nearly a year later on July 12, 1860.^[1]^: 175 HMS Grappler, shown here in later service as a packet steamer, brought the first settlers to the Comox Valley in 1862.

Vancouver Island service

On the Pacific Station Grappler played an important role in the early history of the Colony of Vancouver Island. Under the command of Lieutenant Edmund Hope Verney, Grappler transported the first 35 British settlers to a new settlement at Comox on 2 October 1862 at the request of Governor James Douglas. She continued to act as a transport for the settlement before other transport was available. She also helped enforce the regulation of the liquor trade in the colony.^[2] Her small size, steam power, and shallow draft made her useful as a lighthouse tender, for rescue, and for laying navigation buoys.^[3] however She and Forward were involved in the Lemalchi incident in the spring of 1863 when they hunted down and captured natives believed to have murdered some Gulf Island settlers. Forward used her guns to level a village on Kuper Island; she then transported her captives to Victoria where they were tried and hanged.^[3]

Civilian service and fate

Grappler was paid off on 13 May 1865 and sold for $2,400 in 1868. She was modified by the addition of deck house and put into commercial service for the next 15 years.

On 29 April 1883, while in Discovery Passage about 4 miles south of Seymour Narrows, a fire was discovered in her boiler room. There were only two lifeboats aboard, one of which overturned. There were 36 survivors. Because the ship's records were lost, the number who perished in the sinking is uncertain but is believed to be between 70 and 90. At an inquest which followed, it was found that the vessel was not licensed to carry passengers aboard and the owners had failed to make provisions for their safety.^[3]^: 30 Grappler was on a voyage from the Puget South to the Alaska Territory.^[4]

Citations

^ Gough, Barry M (2016). Britannia's Navy. On the West Coast of North America 1812-1914. Vancouver: Heritage House Publishing Company Ltd. ISBN 978-1-77203-109-6.
^ Pritchard, Allan (2007), The Royal Navy and the Comox Settlement (PDF), vol. 40, Surrey, BC: British Columbia Historical Foundation, p. 20, archived from the original (PDF) on 13 March 2012
^ ^a ^b ^c James, Rick (2011), West Coast Wrecks & Other Maritime Tales, Raincoast Chronicles, vol. 21, Vancouver: Harbour Publishing, ISBN 978-1-55017-545-5
^ "Latest Shipping Intelligence". The Times. No. 30811. London. 4 May 1883. col E, p. 12.