HNoMS Sleipner (1877)

Sleipner after the rebuild in 1900
History
Norway
Name	Sleipner
Namesake	Sleipnir – the eight-legged steed of Odin
Builder	Navy Yard, Karljohansvern
Yard number	56
Laid down	1 January 1877
Launched	7 August 1877
Christened	20 May 1878
Decommissioned	1935
Out of service	1 January 1919
Fate	Scrapped in 1935
General characteristics
Class and type	.1 class gunboat
Displacement	720 long tons (732 t)
Length	53.26 m (174 ft 9 in)
Draught	3.35 m (11 ft 0 in)
Propulsion	650 hp (485 kW) Reciprocating steam engines and sails
Speed	12.7 knots (14.6 mph; 23.5 km/h) under power 13.4 knots (15.4 mph; 24.8 km/h) under power with sails
Complement	90
Armament	1 × 26 cm (10 in)/22 breech-loading gun 1 × 15 cm (5.9 in)/25 breech-loading gun 1 × underwater torpedo tube

HNoMS Sleipner was a 1. class gunboat built for the Royal Norwegian Navy. Like all other Norwegian gunships of her era, she carried a heavy armament on a diminutive hull. The vessel was built at the Naval Yard at Horten, and had yard number 56.

Sleipner's main weapon was a 26 cm (10-inch) cannon, of the same make and model other navies mounted^[1] on battleships. Sleipner also carried an underwater torpedo tube in her bow for firing Whitehead torpedoes, and she was the first vessel in the Royal Norwegian Navy equipped with this weapon.

In 1900 Sleipner was rebuilt, and her masts and rigging removed. After her rebuild she was used as a cadet ship (training vessel) until 1915, when she started a new life as a floating barracks. Between 1921 and 1932 Sleipner was used as a floating depot for the fledgling Royal Norwegian Navy Air Service, before she was finally decommissioned and scrapped in 1935.

• Elias Aslaksen, served as an officer cadet on board Sleipner in 1908.

• 
  Sleipner at the opening ceremony of the Kiel Canal in 1895
• 
  The crew and cadets aboard Sleipner photographed in 1904

• Naval history via Flix: KNM Sleiner, retrieved 2 March 2006