Royal Navy – Historic Ships

Royal Navy Historic Ships

Back to Royal Navy Auxiliaries and Other Ships (including RFA vessels)

(measurements of length are overall length from the taffrail or transom to tip of the bowsprit or jib-boom)

HMS Warrior (1861) LOA 420′ / 128 m TDISP 9,200 tonsHMS Warrior 1861 Portsmouth 2015

HMS Victory, 104 cannon First-Rate 100 cannon ship of the line (1765 – still in commission) LOA 316′ / 96.3 m TDISP 3,500 tons

HMS Victory portsmouth 1945
HMS Victory, raising the yards in August 1945 © IWM (A 30810)
HMS Victory 1765 Portsmouth 2020
HMS Victory showing the 2015 updates to the paint. Research revealed that the yellow/orange strakes on the hull were a 20th Century interpretation of the original hull colour at the time of Trafalgar, and that the true colour was a lighter shade, a very light terracotta colour.

HMS Victory 1765 Portsmouth 2007

HMS Victory 1765 Portsmouth 2014
This 2014 view shows HMS Victory now having her upper masts and jib-boom removed.

HMS Frederick William 86-gun screw battleship (1860-1948), Length stern to figurehead about 340’/103.6 m TDISP 4,500 tons. 1876-1948 was HMS Worcester training ship, Thames Nautical Training College (with the clipper ship Cutty Sark). This ship, incredibly, was originally ordered built as a 110-gun Queen class first rate ship in 1833, with building not starting to 1841, and the design changed many times. Sank 1948 and raised and scrapped 1953.

HMS Frederick William - worcester NMM pv2366
HMS Frederick William now Worcester, at the Thames Nautical Training College, ca. 1860. Credit: William Lionel Wyllie PAE2366 Royal Museums Greenwich.

HMS Frederick William - Worcester ship of the line Greenhithe 1940

HMS Trincomalee (1817) Leda class 38-46 gun frigate Hartlepool UK museum ship LOA 250′ / 76.2 m TDISP 1065 tonsHMS Trincomalee Hartlepool 2018

TS Foudroyant and Implacable - HMS Trincomalee
Training Ships Foudroyant (left) and Implacable, Portsmouth. Foudroyant was originally and would be renamed Trincomalee, while Implacable, scuttled in 1949, was originally the French prize Duguay-Trouin, captured at the Battle of Trafalgar, 1805. © IWM (A 25960)

HMS Unicorn (1824) modified Leda Class 38-46 gun frigate Museum ship LOA 202′ / 61.6 m (jib-boom not stepped) TDISP 1000 tons Dundee Scotland (only sailing warship preserved in an “in ordinary” state)

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HMS Unicorn, Dundee, Oct. 2022. Courtesy Kate Jamieson, who retains copyright.

HMS Unicorn Dundee 2018

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HM Frigate Unicorn, Oct. 2022. The innovative “round stern” design allowed more cannon to be trained aft, to defend the vulnerable stern. Courtesy of Kate Jamieson, who retains copyright.

HMS Unicorn Dundee 2001

HMS Gannet Dotterel class composite sloop (1878) sloop LOA 225′ / 68.6 m TDISP 1,130 tons museum ship Chatham Historic Dockyard since 1987HMS Gannet sloop Chatham 2018.jpg

HMS Calypso, (1885-1922) Calypso class steam corvette LOA 235′ / 71.6 m TDISP 2,770 tons. in 1916 renamed HMS Briton to make “Calypso” available for a “C” class cruiser. From 1902 to disposal in 1922 served as a Royal Naval Reserve (Newfoundland) training and depot ship in St. John’s NFLD. After disposal was used as a salt hulk for many years in Lewisporte, and eventually burned and settled in the Bay of Exploits near Embree, NFLD.

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HMS Calypso before the rig was reduced and deck structures erected, showing the original casemate guns and the decorated stern lights. Allan C. Green / Public domain via State Library of Victoria, Australia H91.250/1472

HMS Calypso wreck NFLD 2019

HMS Calypso hulk Lewisporte NFLD
ex-HMS Calypso / Briton hulk in Lewisporte, NFLD, no date. Department of National Defence CN-5077 via Crowsnest Feb. 1960 edition (Vol. 12 no. 4) p 15. Note at this time the casemates had been removed and the gaps planked over, the entire rig, except what appears to be the lower mizzen, had been removed, along with the funnel and a large deck-house had been erected.

HMS Beagle replica 10-gun Brig sloop (2016) Cherokee class LOA 140′ / 42.7 m full scale replica of the famous ship used by young naturalist Charles Darwin. 6 guns by the second survey voyage of the 1830s. Built 2012-2016 at the Nao Victoria museum, Punta Arenas, Chile. From illustrations, models, and the replica, Beagle was re-rigged as a barque (3 masts).

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The Beagle replica at Punta Arenas, ca. 2014. Credit: Wolfgang Fricke, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

HMS Beagle replica Chile 2021

HM Bark Endeavour replica (1994) LOA 150′ / 45.7 m sailing replica located at the Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney.

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Endeavour replica at Whitehaven Harbour, UK, 2004. Credit: Peter Eckersley / Endeavour, Whitehaven harbour

HM Bark Endeavour replica Sydney Aus 2015

HM Bark Endeavour replica (1999) Now located at Whitby, England, where the original collier was built. Not a sailing replica, but full scale. LOA 150′ / 45.7 m was used as a venue and local attraction at Stockton-on-Tees and then moved to Whitby, to become a museum ship.

HM Bark Endeavour replica Whitby 2018HM Bark Endeavour replica Stockton-on-Tees 2008

Grand Turk (997) replica, LOA 152′ / 46.3 m renamed Etoile du Roy in 2010 and transferred to Saint-Malo, France. This was reportedly based on the lines of the 6th rate ship HMS Blandford (1741) a modified example of a 1719 Establishment 24-gun ship. Blandford was not technically a frigate, although her modifications, where all lower gundeck gunports were omitted and instead she only had sweep ports, resulted in a ship that was for all intents and purposes such.

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Etoile du Roy now based at Saint-Malo, France, 2017 [cropped]. Credit: Ibex73, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Etoile du Roy - ex-Grand Turk replica St. malo FR 2018

The vessels of the Warship Preservation Trust located in the Great Float in Birkenhead before the Trust dissolved and they were disposed of or preservedWarship Preservation Trust Birkenhead collection 2005.jpg

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