Lepanto was a protected cruiser in commission in the Spanish Navy from 1899 to 1908. She was named for the 1571 Battle of Lepanto. She had a short career, spending most of it as a training ship.
Characteristics
Lepanto was long, with a beam of and a draught of . She displaced 4,826 tons. She had two triple expansion steam engines rated at 11,500 nominal horsepower (8,576 kilowatts) that drove two screws.
Construction and commissioning Lepanto was the third and last protected cruiser. She was laid down on 1 October 1886 at the Arsenal de Cartagena in Cartagena, Spain, and launched on 16 November 1893. She was completed on 26 January 1899 and ran engine trials on the nautical measured mile off Cádiz, Spain, that day, managing only , far below her designed speed of . She nonetheless was commissioned on 29 January 1899.
Service history After putting to sea only a few times in her original configuration, Lepanto was redesignated for use as a gunnery and torpedo training ship. She was reclassified as a second-class cruiser and her guns were replaced with guns removed from the armoured frigates and during their conversion into coastal defense ships.
In her new role, Lepanto made voyages in the Mediterranean Sea to train midshipmen, gunners, and torpedomen. Sailors assigned to her began wearing a distinctive cap with a ribbon bearing the ship's name; the use of a cap ribbon to identify sailors' postings later became widespread, and the ribbon became known in the Spanish Navy as the "Lepanto ribbon" or simply "Lepanto."
In April 1904, Lepanto, the armored cruiser , and the protected cruiser departed Cádiz, Spain, escorting the royal yacht Giralda, upon which King Alfonso XIII was embarked for a visit to the Balearic Islands. The ships stopped first at Mahón on Menorca, then arrived on the afternoon of 21 April 1904 at Palma de Mallorca on Mallorca, where they rendezvoused with Numancia and a British Royal Navy squadron under the command of Vice-Admiral Charles Beresford that had arrived from Gibraltar. On the morning of 25 April Giralda and her escorts arrived at Ibiza, then set course for the Chafarinas Islands in the Alboran Sea in the western Mediterranean, which they reached on 26 April. On 27 April, the Spanish squadron departed for Málaga, Spain. Getting back underway from Málaga on 1 May 1904, the ships called at Melilla on the coast of North Africa. The king and his escorting ships then stopped at Chafarinas and Ceuta before ending the voyage at Cádiz.
Lepanto and the destroyer conducted a training cruise in 1905, departing Palma de Mallorcain late May 1905 to carry out exercises in the waters off Ibiza and Cabrera before stopping at Mahón. They then visited Roses, Barcelona, Valencia, Alicante — which they reached on and where Lepanto ran aground on a sandbank — Santa Pola, and Cartagena.
Osado again accompanied Lepanto on Lepanto′s annual training cruise in 1906, during which they visited several ports in Spain and North Africa. The ships departed Cartagena on . After passing the Chafarinas Islands, they arrived in Melilla on 1906. They then called at Ceuta, reached Algeciras on . After Lepanto embarked the representatives the Sultan of Morocco, Abdelaziz, had sent to the wedding on of King Alfonso XIII and Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, the ships returned them to Morocco, arriving at Tangier by . On , the ships called at Alicante. In , they got underway from Barcelona and proceeded to the Gulf of Roses, where they conducted gunnery and torpedo-firing drills. They then steamed to the Balearic Islands before concluding the training voyage at Cartagena in late July.
From 1907, Lepanto and her squadron — which also included Vitoria, the armoured cruiser , and the protected cruiser — joined the battleship in attending a meeting between King Alfonso XIII of Spain and King Edward VII of the United Kingdom which took place in Cartagena's harbor.
Disposal
Lepanto was decommissioned on 3 October 1908. The last surviving Reina Regente-class ship, she was sold in 1911 and subsequently scrapped.
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