Siren

Her song is one of violence and destruction, her voice a beautiful choir of naval rifles. Now surrender your valuables, or hear her sing!

— Leucosia Cuggan.

  The Siren was a central battery blue water ironclad formerly of the Imperial Navy. She served in the Morning Shore squadron until she was lost in a mutiny and subsequently became an infamous pirate vessel. Under the command of Captain Lucia "Leucosia" Cuggan, the Siren raided merchant shipping and small coastal settlements up and down The Dawn Coast for a number of years. The Siren was eventually destroyed when it was cornered by an Imperial Navy squadron at Cuggan's Cove.   The Siren was originally ordered as the first of a class of five ships. However, her four planned sister ships were cancelled before their keels had been laid down and later re-ordered without a full rig of sails, leaving the Siren as the last commissioned Imperial Navy warship to be propelled by both sail and steam.  

Specifications

 

Construction

  The Siren was designed and built and built as an iron hulled, central battery ironclad at the Mansk-Lindway Shipyard in the Imperial capitol of Lindan. Her lines were based on the predecessor Royale Hound class, incorporating a more pronounced flare to her bow to reduce the amount of water swamping the deck in heavy seas. As a blue water ironclad, she was capable of oceaninc voyages, unlike a number of ironclads with a low freeboard which were deemed to be only suitable for port defence duties, or for coastal or riverine operations.   The Siren was completed with a length of 329 ft, a beam of 58 ft, a draught of 24ft at light load, and 26 ft at deep load. She displaced 8,681 Tons at normal load, and at deep load she dispaced 8,853 Tons.   She was rigged with three masts of sails, and installed with a single-shaft Carsingthorpe trunk steam engine below the waterline that was rated for 7,078 indicated horsepower. During sea trials, her top speed was recorded as 10 Knots under sail, and 14 Knots under steam, however later witness accounts suggest that she was capable of nearly 15 Knots.    

Protection

  The Siren, as with most contemporary ironclads, was protected by plates of wrought iron armour. The Siren featured both an armoured box citadel amidships that covered her gun battery, and an armoured belt that covered the ship's entire waterline.   Her armoured box citadel was 9 inches thick at the waterline, reducing to 7 inches thick over the gun battery, and with 6 inch thick internal bulkheads. Her belt was a maximum of 8 inches thick immediately adjacent to her citadel, tapering down to 5 inches thick at the stern, and 4.5 inches thick at the bow.    

Armament

  As a central battery ironclad, the Siren's main armament was concentrated within an armoured box battery amidships. Her main battery consisted of eight 10 inch Greenfelt muzzle-loading rifles, firing through narrow ports within the armoured box for a maximum four gun broadside. The two fore-most guns and aft-most guns could be traversed to fire through a port in the corner of the armoured box allowing fire closer to the centerline, a maximum of 6 degrees fore, and 10 degrees aft.   An additional 10 inch Greenfelt was originally mounted in the bow as a dedicated chase gun. However, the weight of this gun was found to push the bow too far down into the water, swamping the position in all but the calmest seas while under sail only, and the gun was subsequently removed before she was fully commissioned. Later still under Captain Leucosia Cuggan, this position was again fitted with an old gun of a smaller but unspecified size, and was apparently used exclusively to damage the sails and rigging of merchants before the Siren closed in.   Six 6-pounder O'donnel guns were fitted on the upper deck, three per side, for the purpose of defending against boarding actions, clearing the decks of other ships, and damaging masts and rigging fixtures of other ships at close range. Under Captain Leucosia Cuggan, these were eventually replaced with equivalent 6-pounder Heath-Sgugg guns.   A rail for laying static torpedoes was originally fitted to the stern, but was removed before she was assigned to the Morning Shores Squadron.  

Service History

 

Imperial Navy

 

Early Service

  After a short shakedown cruise, the Siren was commissioned into Imperial Naval service with the South Wexen squadron. Her initial service life was a quiet one, not seeing any action for the first few years of her service other than assisting a couple of steamers who had ran out of coal just off of the Wexen coastline.   During this time, she only fired her guns in anger once, to fire a warning shot across the bow of a civilian steamer who was approaching too closely to the Imperial Yacht.    

Morning Shores Squadron

  With the rapid pace of ironclad development, the Siren was, within a few years of commissioning into service, superceded by ships who had a heavier armourment, more effective armour, higher top speeds, and longer operational ranges, As the Siren continued to fall behind, the decision was made to transfer her and a few other older blue water ironclads to form the core of the Morning Shores Squadron, where she take on a policing role in a place where she would never be expected to face off against another ironclad warship.    

Piracy

 

Mutiny

 

The beatings wlll damn well continue until you lazy knuckleheads do your damned duty!

— Captain Joeseph Grahame, allegedly.

  The Siren had always had problems with crew morale and alleged insubordination ever since Captain Grahame took command. Common complaints included the beating of sailors for minor infractions, the beating of sailors at random when something couldn't be blamed on anyone specific, the frequent withholding of the daily rum ration without any justification at all, alleged theft of pay, and beatings apparently just for the sake of it.   The officers aboard were sympathetic and spoke out in support of their crew, but were swiftly forced out by Captain Grahame and replaced with hand picked officers who were said to be just as cruel. Without support from the ship's officers, the Provincial Admiralty Board dismissed the crew's complaints against Captain Grahame, and so discontent within the crew fermented over the next few months.   Among Grahame's cadre of hand-picked officers was a woman by the name of Lucia Cuggan. Despite being nearly as ruthless as her captain, she was well aware of the discontent fermenting and the inevitability of tensions boiling over, so she began collaborating with certain members of the crew in secret. When the mutiny occurred, she was in a position to make herself the de-facto leader and became Captain Cuggan. Thus, the Siren became the first ironclad pirate ship in the waters of the Morning Shores.   It is unknown precisely what became of Captain Grahame and his officers, though it can safely be assumed that they were all killed by the mutineers and thrown overboard.    

Infamy

  Knowing that at the time the Provincial Admiralty Board had a blanket policy of executing mutineers, no matter the reason, the crew of the Siren had little choice but to turn to piracy to get by.   Initially basing herself out of New South Lindan, Captain Cuggan swiftly turned her ruthlessness towards the merchants sailing up and down the Dawn Coast. Merchants flying the pennant of the Honourable Dawn Coast Company were especially lucrative targets, as at that point in time the Company's ships were poorly armed and the Company possessed few escorts capable of threatening a full ironclad.   Her tendency to leave few, if any, survivors meant that as far as anyone knew a good number of merchants simply vanished without a trace. The only evidence that the Siren was responsible came from stories spread in the New South Lindan bars. By the time the Provincial Admiralty realised what was actually happening, Lucia Cuggan had developed a vicious reputation, taking on the name "Leucosia" after a Siren from ancient myth.    

Notable Victims

  The Siren is credited with plundering the following notable merchants:

The Redhart

The St. Levezziare

The Royale Jessica

The Herring of Lindmuth

In addition, the Siren is credited with the destruction of the Imperial ironclad Royale Hound, who apparently mistook the Siren for another of the Royale Hound's sister ships due to the design lineage and close resemblance.    

Fate

  The Siren's piratical career eventually came to an end when an Imperial Navy squadron caught her at anchor, sheltering in what is now known as Cuggan's Cove while her crew was cleaning the ash out of her boilers' furnaces. With her boilers cold, she was unable to build up steam pressure and was unable to maneuver to bring a broadside to bear on the naval squadron bearing down on her.   As an old ironclad at this point and of a now obsolete design, her armoured citadel was insufficient to resist the modern breach-loading rifles of the Imperial Navy. Her central battery was quickly silenced, and shortly afterwards a fire reached her magazine. The Siren was ripped apart by the magazine explosion, with witness accounts claiming that her mainmast flew more than fifty feet straight up into the air.   The pieces of the Siren's wreck came to rest in the sands of the cove, shallow enough that many of which remain partially above water even at high tide. Several proposals to salvage parts of the wreck have been made in the years since, however the cove is unsuitable for such operations and so the wreck has been left to rust in place.  

They'll never defeat me!

— Leucosia Cuggan, allegedly, just before the Siren's magazine detonated.

Here lies the Siren. May she Rust In Pieces.

— Carved into the rocks of Cuggan's Cove.