[1] Barracouta was commissioned on 30 July 1853[1] At 9 p.m. that day, she was in collision with the brig Duff off the north Kent coast.

From September to mid-October 1854, Barracouta was part of a squadron of four ships led by vice admiral Sir James Stirling.

With the start of the Crimean War, Stirling was anxious to prevent Russian ships from sheltering in Japanese ports and menacing allied shipping and led the squadron to Nagasaki where he concluded the Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty with representatives of the Tokugawa shogunate.

She served in West Africa, as part of the Cape of Good Hope Station in 1873, and participated in the Anglo-Ashanti wars.

The barque had run aground at La Atunara, Spain and had been abandoned in a waterlogged condition.

[5][6][7] Barracouta left the Australia Station in July 1876 and returned to England and was paid off at the Chatham Dockyard in 1877.