laid down at the end of the year, launched in 1886, and commissioned in 1887. Her displacement was 380 tons, and she was armed with one 90 mm Hontoria cannon, four 57 mm Nordenfeldt cannon, two 37 mm Hotchkiss guns and 3 Schwartzkopff torpedo tubes. Her complement was 60 men. In terms of gunnery, speed (22.5 knots in trials) and dimensions, the specific design to chase torpedo boats and her high seas capabilities, Destructor is widely considered the first destroyer ever built.

The Spanish Destructor is thought to have influenced the designation and concept of later destroyers developed by the British Navy.

Shortly afterwards, Britain began experiments with the Rattlesnake class 'torpedo boat catcher', a class of 17 large torpedo boats - the first precursors of destroyers to be builtas a class, rather than as single ships. On tests, Rattlesnake proved to be marginally faster than torpedo boats, but not fast enough to be decisive.

The first ships to bear the formal designation "Torpedo boat destroyer" (TBD) were the Havock class of two ships of the Royal Navy, developed in 1892 under the newly appointed Third Sea LordRear Admiral"Jackie" Fisher, and launched by Yarrows in London in 1893. Havock had a 240 tons displacement, a speed of 27 knots (50 km/h), and was armed with a single 12-pounder (76 mm) gun, three 6-pounders (57 mm), and three 46 cm torpedo tubes. She also had the range and speed to effectively travel with a battle fleet.

The French navy, an extensive user of torpedo boats, built its first destroyer in