John Tornikroft"s Skorok. The first destroyers of the world

The history of the formation of a class of destroyers radically differed from the practice of designing and building other classes of warships of the last quarter of the 19th century. Before the appearance of fighters in the early 1890s. In the destruction, the era of the "private initiative" reigned - the fleets of almost all countries bought ready -made projects from several suppliers, only occasionally insisting on the introduction of private technical solutions in them. The shipyard constantly improved their products, but at the same time proceeded from their own ideas about what was in demand by the market. The host of the “mod lawmakers” was the British shipbuilder John Tornikroft (1843-1928), who in 1873 created the first successful minnoska, and in 1877 built the first torpedo-carrier “Lightning”. The prototype of the 87-foot "lighting" was the steam yacht built for Baroness Rothschild. Tornikroft has repeatedly replicated this and other projects for both the royal fleet and foreign customers (Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, the Russian Empire, Italy, Greece, Spain, Brazil, Argentina)