She was the eleventh ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name (or a variant of it), and was noted for her Arctic exploration work; in 1876 she reached a record latitude of 82° North.

Alert briefly served with the US Navy, and ended her career with the Canadian Marine Service as a lighthouse tender and buoy ship.

The wooden sloops of the Cruizer class were designed under the direction of Lord John Hay, and after his "Committee of Reference" was disbanded, their construction was supervised by the new Surveyor of the Navy, Sir Baldwin Walker.

It was fitted at Chatham[3] with a two-cylinder horizontal single-expansion steam engine, which was supplied by Ravenhill & Salkeld at a cost of £6,052 and generated an indicated horsepower of 383 hp (286 kW); driving a single screw, this gave a maximum speed of 8.8 knots (16.3 km/h).

Alert spent the first 11 years of her life on the Pacific Station, based at Esquimalt at the southern tip of Vancouver Island, Canada.

[8] Spring 1876 saw considerable activity by sledge, charting the coasts of Ellesmere Island and Greenland, but scurvy had begun to take hold, with Alert suffering the greatest burden.

By 11 May, having made slow progress, they reached their greatest latitude at 83° 20' 26"N.[9] Suffering from snow blindness, scurvy and exhaustion, they turned back.

The northernmost permanently inhabited place on earth, the settlement of Alert at the northern point of Ellesmere Island, was named for the ship.

Alert recommissioned at Chatham on 20 August 1878[5] under the command of Captain Sir George Strong Nares for a survey of the Strait of Magellan.

She was employed in surveying, but the presence of Doctor Richard Coppinger, her surgeon, ensured that she also made a huge contribution to the field of zoology.

She was loaned to the US Navy under the command of Captain George W Coffin on 20 February 1884, and was used to set up supply dumps to support USS Bear in the extrication of Greely and his men.

She worked at first in Nova Scotia, but as her wooden hull showed signs of deterioration, she was moved to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, sailing out of Quebec.

[3] Thirty years after her launch little was left of her original appearance; in essence she was now a small, old, low-powered steamer showing the scars of hard labour and many an ungainly conversion.

CGS Alert was laid up in November 1894 and sold, the bill of exchange being forwarded to the Admiralty, since she was still officially on loan,[5] the total sum being 814 pounds, 2 shillings and 7 pence.