HMS C11


HMS C11 was one of 38 C-class submarines built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. The boat was lost after being rammed in 1909.

Design and description

The C class was essentially a repeat of the preceding B class, albeit with better performance underwater. The submarine had a length of overall, a beam of and a mean draft of. They displaced on the surface and submerged. The C-class submarines had a crew of two officers and fourteen ratings.
For surface running, the boats were powered by a single 16-cylinder Vickers petrol engine that drove one propeller shaft. When submerged the propeller was driven by a electric motor. They could reach on the surface and underwater. On the surface, the C class had a range of at.
The boats were armed with two 18-inch torpedo tubes in the bow. They could carry a pair of reload torpedoes, but generally did not as they would have to remove an equal weight of fuel in compensation.

Construction and career

C11 was built by Vickers at their Barrow-in-Furness shipyard, laid down on 6 April 1906 and was commissioned on 3 September 1907. The boat was sunk in a collision with the collier Eddystone in the North Sea south of Cromer, Norfolk on 14 July 1909. There were only three survivors. Attempts were made to salvage the stricken submarine but they were abandoned in September 1909, after only a single body had been recovered. The wreck was rediscovered in the late 1990s.