HMS Amethyst (1844)

HMS Amethyst was a gaff rigged three mast sailing boat.

[1] Together with HMS Iris she was loaned by the Admiralty to the Atlantic Telegraph Company in 1864, both ships being extensively modified in 1865 for ferrying the Atlantic cable from the manufacturer's works at Enderby's wharf, in East Greenwich, London, to the Great Eastern at her Sheerness mooring.

The cable was coiled down into great cylindrical tanks at the Wharf before being fed into the 'Great Eastern'.

The 'Amethyst' and 'Iris' transferred the 2500 miles (4022 km) of cable to the 'Great Eastern', beginning in February 1865,[2] an operation that took over three months.

As obsolete sailing vessels which had to be towed while ferrying cable, neither ship was capable of independent operation, and both were described as "hulks" in contemporary reports.

HMS Amethyst, in a gale in the Bay of Biscay, 27 September 1856
The cable passed from the works into the Amethyst's hulk lying in the Thames at Greenwich