Fifteen ships and two

shore establishment A stone frigate is a naval establishment on land. "Stone frigate" is an informal term that has its origin in Britain's Royal Navy after its use of Diamond Rock, an island off Martinique, as a 'sloop of war' to harass the First French Empire, ...

s of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

have borne the name HMS ''Ferret'', after the domestic mammal, the

Ferret The ferret (''Mustela furo'') is a small, Domestication, domesticated species belonging to the family Mustelidae. The ferret is most likely a domesticated form of the wild European polecat (''Mustela putorius''), evidenced by their Hybrid (biol ...

: * was a 10-gun

sloop A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...

launched in 1704 that the French captured in 1706. * was a 10-gun sloop launched in 1711 that the Spanish captured in 1718. * was a 6-gun sloop launched in 1721 and sold in 1731. * was a 14-gun sloop launched in 1743; she foundered in a hurricane in 1757. * was a 14-gun sloop launched in 1760; she foundered in a hurricane in 1776. * was a 6-gun cutter launched in 1763 and sold in 1781. * was a 12-gun brig-sloop launched in 1784 and sold in 1801; she then became a whaler, making six voyages to Brazil, the South Pacific, and New Zealand between 1802 and 1815. * was a 4-gun gunboat. She was a Dutch

hoy Hoy ( sco, Hoy; from Norse , meaning "high island") is an island in Orkney, Scotland, measuring – the second largest in the archipelago, after Mainland. A natural causeway, ''the Ayre'', links the island to the smaller South Walls; the two ...

purchased in 1794 and sold in 1802. * was a 6-gun

schooner A schooner () is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schoon ...

purchased in 1799 that the Spanish captured that same year. * was an 18-gun brig-sloop launched in 1806 and wrecked in 1813. * HMS ''Ferret'' was a 14-gun gun-brig, previously the American

privateer A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or deleg ...

''Rapid''. After captured her in 1813 she became HMS ''Nova Scotia''. The Admiralty renamed her HMS ''Ferret'' in 1813 and sold her in 1820. * was a 10-gun brig-sloop launched in 1821 and sold in 1837. * was an 8-gun

brig A brig is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: two masts which are both square rig, square-rigged. Brigs originated in the second half of the 18th century and were a common type of smaller merchant vessel or warship from then until the ...

launched in 1840 and wrecked in 1869. * was a , later merged into the A class. She was launched in 1893, was dismantled in 1910 and sunk as a target in 1911. * was an launched in 1911 and sold in 1921. * was the Royal Navy's shore base at Londonderry, Northern Ireland between 1940 and 1947. * is a

Royal Naval Reserve The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) is one of the two volunteer reserve forces of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Together with the Royal Marines Reserve, they form the Maritime Reserve. The present RNR was formed by merging the original Ro ...

training centre formed in 1989 at the Intelligence Corps centre in

Ashford, Kent Ashford is a town in the county of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Great Stour at the southern or Escarpment, scarp edge of the North Downs, about southeast of central London and northwest of Folkestone by road. In the ...

. The unit transferred with the Corps and the Defence Intelligence and Security Centre to Chicksands in 1997.

See also