Nine vessels of the United Kingdom's

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 been named HMS ''Porcupine'', after the

porcupine Porcupines are large rodents with coats of sharp spines, or quills, that protect them against predation. The term covers two families of animals: the Old World porcupines of family Hystricidae, and the New World porcupines of family, Erethizont ...

, a

rodent Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are na ...

belonging to the families Erethizontidae or Hystricidae. * was a 16-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 1743, purchased in 1746, and sold in 1763. She became the mercantile ''Minerva'', which in 1768 traded between London and Africa.''

Lloyd's Register Lloyd's Register Group Limited (LR) is a technical and professional services organisation and a maritime classification society, wholly owned by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, a UK charity dedicated to research and education in science and ...

'
(1768), Seq.No.M295.
/ref> * was a 24-gun

post ship Post ship was a designation used in the Royal Navy during the second half of the 18th century and the Napoleonic Wars to describe a ship of the sixth rate (see rating system of the Royal Navy) that was smaller than a frigate (in practice, carry ...

launched in 1777 and broken up in 1805. *HMS ''Porcupine'' was a 16-gun sloop purchased in

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

in 1777 and sold in 1788. * was a 22-gun post ship launched in 1807 and sold in 1816. *HMS ''Porcupine'' was to have been a 28-gun

sixth rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a sixth-rate was the designation for small warships mounting between 20 and 28 carriage-mounted guns on a single deck, sometimes with smaller guns on the upper works and ...

; ordered in 1819, she was canceled in 1832. * was a wooden paddle wheel surveying vessel built at Deptford and sold in 1883. * was a launched by Palmers in 1895 that served in home waters and was sold in 1920. * was a P-class destroyer launched in 1941 and torpedoed by in the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...

in 1942. *HMS ''Porcupine'' was to have been a survey ship, renamed in 1967 as HMS ''Barracouta'', but the order was cancelled in 1967.

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Porcupine, Hms Royal Navy ship names