her career, two SK L/30 quick-firing guns and four Hotchkiss revolver cannon were added. The two 8.8 cm guns were given a total of 300 shells. Service history Construction – 1894 Nixe was laid down at the Kaiserliche Werft (Imperial Shipyard) in Danzig in August 1883 under the contract name Ersatz as a replacement for the old corvette. She was launched on 23 July 1885 and at the launching ceremony, the director of the shipyard, Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral) Johann-Heinrich Pirner christened the ship after the Nixe water spirits of German mythology. She was commissioned on 1 April 1886 and began sea trials. She then went into the Kaiserliche Werft in Kiel, where she was fitted out as a training ship for naval cadets and Schiffsjungen (apprentice seamen). Nixe went on her first cruise with a contingent of Schiffsjungen from 17 to 31 May. Nixe began her first major overseas cruise on 15 June, which went to South and Central America. She first visited Bahía Blanca and then toured the West Indies. While in St. Thomas, she joined the Training Squadron and left with the rest of the ships to return to Germany on 3 February 1887. They stopped in Queenstown, Ireland on 4 March, where Nixe left the Training Squadron to proceed independently, stopping in Lisbon, Portugal and Gibraltar before finally arriving back in Kiel on 25 July. She took part in the annual fleet maneuvers from 6 to 28 August in the Bay of Danzig and then served as the guard ship in Wilhelmshaven for the Marinestation der Nordsee (North Sea Naval Station) from 17 September 1887 to 17 April 1888. Nixe resumed training duties in April, first with short cruises in the Baltic Sea. On 4 June, she embarked on her next major cruise to visit the West Indies and ports in Canada, arriving back in Kiel on 9 September 1889. She was decommissioned on 30 September and then recommissioned on 9 April 1890. The ship conducted more Baltic training cruises until 10 June, when she went on another cruise to the West Indies; during this voyage, she visited ports in Venezuela and Norfolk, Virginia in the United States. She reached Kiel on 25 August 1891 and immediately joined the fleet maneuvers, which lasted until 18 September. The next year's training program began on 1 April 1892, and it followed the same pattern as the previous year, but