Dom Fernando II e Glória

Type

Frigate

Period

19th Century

Nation

Portugal

Overview: Dom Fernando II e Glória is a wooden-hulled 50-gun sailing frigate of the Portuguese Navy, named for King Consort Ferdinand II and Our Lady of Glory. She holds the distinction of being Portugal's last sailing warship built and the last vessel to sail the historic Carreira da Índia route linking Lisbon and Goa. Specifications: Built of teak at the Royal Navy Arsenal shipyard in Daman, Portuguese India, she displaced roughly 1,849 tons, measured about 284 ft (87 m) in length with a 42 ft (13 m) beam, and was a full-rigged ship carrying over 22,000 sq ft of sail. Armament comprised 28 eighteen-pounder long guns on the gun deck, 20 thirty-two-pounder carronades on the main deck, and 2 twelve-pounder bow chasers, with a wartime complement of up to 379 crew. Service History: Launched on 22 October 1843, she made her maiden voyage from Goa to Lisbon in 1845 and went on to serve on transatlantic and colonial runs before becoming the Navy's Artillery School ship in 1865, a role she held for decades. Her last active sea voyage came in 1878, by which time she had logged over 100,000 miles, roughly five circumnavigations of the globe, including rescuing the crew of a burning American bark off the Azores that year. Notable Facts: In 1963 a major fire nearly destroyed the moored hulk, which then sat abandoned in the Tagus mudflats for almost three decades until a painstaking Portuguese Navy-led restoration (1992-1998) returned her to her 1850s appearance, salvaging and reinstalling many original fittings. She now serves as a museum ship in Cacilhas, Almada, classified as Auxiliary Navy Unit UAM 203, and is regarded as one of the oldest surviving armed sailing frigates in the world.