Sea Trials

[pete-c]

As I understand it (I know I'll be corrected if I'm wrong) pre-war, a newly built Royal Navy ship would have undertaken her sea trials before her commissioning.

Upon the outbreak of WW1, am I right to think that this process might have been/was reversed?

Thanks in advance.

Peter.

 

[horatio2]

There is no doubt that some sea trials were conducted after commissioning, in particular those that required a fully-manned ship.

Many (most?) post-build trials were certainly part of the build contract and their successful completion formed an important element of the formal Admiralty acceptance procedure. If the ship was not accepted from the builder it could not be commissioned.

Some of these principles read across to ships emerging from refit.

You would need to see detailed acceptance programmes to be able to make a judgement about pre- and post-commissioning and any pre-war differences.

[pete-c]

17 hours ago, horatio2 said:

There is no doubt that some sea trials were conducted after commissioning, in particular those that required a fully-manned ship.

Thanks h2.  This certainly tallies with the vessel in question.