HMS Cobra (1899)

HMS Cobra was a turbine-powered destroyer of the Royal Navy. She was built speculatively by Armstrong Whitworth and then offered for sale to the British Admiralty. She was launched on 28 June 1899, and purchased by the Navy on 8 May 1900 for £70,000.

Her short career came to an end when she broke her back and sank near South Dowsing Shoal, off Ingoldmells, on 18 September 1901. The break occurred 150 ft (46 m) from her bows, between the two aft boilers. Twelve men — including the chief engineer — were saved; 44 Navy officers and men, as well as 23 staff from the contractors, mostly employees of the turbine manufacturers, Parsons Marine, were drowned.

A court-martial enquiry held in October absolved the surviving officers of all blame, finding that "Cobra did not touch the ground or come into any contact with any obstruction, nor was her loss due to any error in navigation, but was due to structural weakness of the ship." This was contested by the manufacturers and other shipbuilders, with examples of equivalent boats being navigated to Australia or Japan without incident.

The loss of Cobra came only six weeks after that of the destroyer Viper, the only other turbine-powered ship in the navy. Both ships had been intended as trial vessels to demonstrate the capabilities of the new technology. Neither loss was caused by problems with the turbines, but the losses were still a setback for the general introduction of turbines into warships. The losses came after the loss of Serpent in 1890 and created an aversion in the Royal Navy towards snake names, and these names were not reused.