SMS Freya

SMS Freya was a steam corvette of the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy). She was the third member of the Ariadne class, which included two other ships, Ariadne and Luise. Ordered as part of a large naval expansion program after the Austro-Prussian War, she was laid down in 1872 after the Franco-Prussian War. She was launched in December 1874 and completed in October 1876. Freya was built to a different design than her sisters, being longer and carrying a heavier battery of twelve guns.
The ship went on two major overseas cruises in her career,. The first of which was from 1877 to 1879, and the second immediately after from 1879 to 1881; both were fairly uneventful. On the first cruise, she went to the eastern Mediterranean Sea and then to China as part of the East Asia Squadron. The second voyage began with a deployment to Chilean waters to protect German interests during the War of the Pacific, after which she returned to Chinese waters. After returning to Germany in 1881, she was converted into a training ship and returned to service in that capacity in 1883. She went on only one major training cruise, which lasted from mid-1883 to late 1884; she toured ports in the Americas...