HMAS Encounter (1902)

Portside view HMAS Encounter
History
United Kingdom
Name	Encounter
Builder	HM Dockyard Devonport
Laid down	28 January 1901
Launched	18 June 1902
Christened	Lady Sturges Jackson
Completed	6 December 1905
Commissioned	21 November 1905
Fate	Transferred to the Royal Australian Navy
Australia
Name	Encounter
Acquired	1912, permanently transferred 5 December 1919
Commissioned	1 July 1912
Decommissioned	15 August 1929
Renamed	HMAS Penguin (May 1923)
Reclassified	Submarine depot ship (May 1923)
Motto	"Show the Flag"
Nickname(s)	"The Old Bus"
Honours and awards	Battle honours: Rabaul 1914
Fate	Scuttled off Sydney Heads, 14 September 1932
General characteristics
Class and type	Challenger-class cruiser
Displacement	5,880 long tons (5,970 t) standard
Length	376 ft 1.75 in (114.65 m) overall 355 ft (108.20 m) between perpendiculars
Beam	56 ft 2.125 in (17.12 m)
Draught	21.25 ft (6.48 m)
Propulsion	Keyham 4-cylinder triple expansion steam engine, 12,500 hp (9,300 kW), two shafts
Speed	21 knots (38.9 km/h; 24.2 mph)
Complement	RN: 475 RAN: 26 officers, 269 sailors
Armament	As completed: 11 × BL 6-inch (152 mm) guns 9 × QF 12-pounder 12 cwt (3-inch) guns 6 × QF 3-pounder (47 mm) guns 3 × machine guns 2 × 18-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes

HMAS Encounter was a second-class protected cruiser of the Challenger class operated by the Royal Navy (RN) and Royal Australian Navy (RAN). She was built by HM Dockyard Devonport and completed at the end of 1905.

Encounter spent the first six years of her career operating with the RN's Australia Squadron, before being transferred to the newly formed RAN. During World War I, the cruiser became the first ship of the RAN to fire in anger when she bombarded Toma Ridge. Encounter operated in the New Guinea, Fiji-Samoa, and Malaya areas until 1916, when she returned to Australian waters. The ship spent the rest of the war patrolling and escorting convoys around Australia and into the Indian Ocean. In 1919, Encounter was sent to evacuate the Administrator of the Northern Territory and his family following the Darwin Rebellion.

Encounter was paid off into reserve in 1920, but saw further use as a depot ship until being completely decommissioned in 1929. In 1932, the cruiser was scuttled off Sydney.