Chilean cruiser Esmeralda (1883)

Illustration of Esmeralda by Norman Davis for the Illustrated London News, 1891
History
Chile
Name	Esmeralda
Namesake	Chilean corvette Esmeralda[1]
Builder	Armstrong Mitchell, Elswick, United Kingdom
Yard number	429
Laid down	5 April 1881
Launched	6 June 1883
Completed	15 July 1884
Fate	Sold to Japan, 1894
Empire of Japan
Renamed	Izumi
Namesake	Izumi Province
Stricken	1 April 1912
Fate	Scrapped
General characteristics
Type	Protected cruiser
Displacement	2,950 long tons (2,997 t)
Length	270 ft (82 m) (pp)
Beam	42 ft (13 m)
Draft	18 ft 6 in (6 m)
Installed power	4 double-ended fire-tube boilers 6,803 ihp (5,073 kW)
Propulsion	2 compound steam engines 600 tons coal, max
Speed	18.3 knots (33.9 km/h; 21.1 mph)
Complement	296
Armament	2 × 10 in (254 mm)/30 6 × 6 in (152 mm)/26 2 × 6 pdr (2.25 in (57 mm)) guns 5 × 37 mm (1.5 in) revolving cannon
Armor	Up to 1 in (25 mm) deck armor

The Chilean cruiser Esmeralda was the first protected cruiser, a ship type named for the arched armored deck that protected vital areas like propulsion machinery and ammunition magazines.

The British shipbuilder Armstrong Mitchell constructed Esmeralda in the early 1880s, and the company's founder hailed the new ship as "the swiftest and most powerfully armed cruiser in the world".^[2] After it entered service, the Chileans deployed Esmeralda to Panama in 1885 to show the flag during an emerging crisis in the region. The cruiser was later used to support the Congressionalist cause during the 1891 Chilean Civil War.

In 1894, Esmeralda was sold to Japan via Ecuador. Renamed Izumi,^[A] the cruiser arrived too late to participate in the major naval battles of the 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War. It did see active service in the Russo-Japanese War ten years later. During that conflict, Izumi contributed to the decisive Japanese victory in the Battle of Tsushima by being one of the first ships to make visual contact with the opposing Russian fleet. After the war, the aging cruiser was decommissioned and stricken from the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1912.

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