Thirteen ships 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 been named HMS ''Shark'' (or HMS ''Sharke'') after the

shark Sharks are a group of elasmobranch fish characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton, five to seven gill slits on the sides of the head, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the clade Selachimo ...

: * was an 8-gun

brigantine A brigantine is a two-masted sailing vessel with a fully square-rigged foremast and at least two sails on the main mast: a square topsail and a gaff sail mainsail (behind the mast). The main mast is the second and taller of the two masts. Older ...

launched in 1691 and sold in 1698. * was a 14-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 1699 and captured by French forces in 1703. * was a 14-gun sloop launched in 1711, rebuilt in 1722 and sold in 1732. * was a 14-gun sloop launched in 1732 and sold in 1755. * was a 16-gun sloop purchased on the stocks in 1775 and launched in 1776. She was converted to a

fireship A fire ship or fireship, used in the days of wooden rowed or sailing ships, was a ship filled with combustibles, or gunpowder deliberately set on fire and steered (or, when possible, allowed to drift) into an enemy fleet, in order to destroy sh ...

and renamed HMS ''Salamander'' in 1778, and was sold in 1783. She then became the mercantile ''Salamander'' and was seriatem a

whaler A whaler or whaling ship is a specialized vessel, designed or adapted for whaling: the catching or processing of whales. Terminology The term ''whaler'' is mostly historic. A handful of nations continue with industrial whaling, and one, Japa ...

, convict

transport Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, an ...

to Australia, whaler, and slaver. She is last listed in ''

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 ...

'' in 1811. * was a 16-gun sloop launched in 1779. She was used as a

receiving ship A hulk is a ship that is afloat, but incapable of going to sea. Hulk may be used to describe a ship that has been launched but not completed, an abandoned wreck or shell, or to refer to an old ship that has had its rigging or internal equipmen ...

on the

Jamaica station Jamaica station is a major train station of the Long Island Rail Road located in Jamaica, Queens, New York City. With weekday ridership exceeding 200,000 passengers, it is the largest transit hub on Long Island, the fourth-busiest rail station ...

from 1803 to 1816 and foundered in Port Royal harbor in 1818; her remains were sold a few months later. * was 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 ...

bought in 1780 that foundered with the loss of her entire crew during a storm off North America in 1780. * was a 4-gun 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 handed over to French forces in 1795 at

La Hogue Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue is a commune in the Manche department in Normandy in north-western France. Toponymy Saint-Vaast is the Norman name of Saint Vedast and Hougue is a Norman language word meaning a "mound" or "loaf" and comes from the Old Nors ...

by her crew during a mutiny.Hepper (1994), p.79. * was a launched in 1894 and broken up in 1911. * was an launched in 1912. She was sunk at the

battle of Jutland The Battle of Jutland (german: Skagerrakschlacht, the Battle of the Skagerrak) was a naval battle fought between Britain's Royal Navy Grand Fleet, under Admiral John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, Sir John Jellicoe, and the Imperial German Navy ...

in 1916. * was an launched in 1918 and scrapped in 1931. * was an S-class

submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...

launched in 1934. She was disabled by an air attack in 1940 and sank the next day. *, an S-class destroyer launched in 1943. She was transferred to the

Royal Norwegian Navy The Royal Norwegian Navy ( no, Sjøforsvaret, , Sea defence) is the branch of the Norwegian Armed Forces responsible for naval operations of Norway. , the Royal Norwegian Navy consists of approximately 3,700 personnel (9,450 in mobilized state, 3 ...

on completion in 1944 and renamed . She was sunk later that year.

Citations

References

* *Hepper, David J. (1994) ''British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail, 1650-1859''. (Rotherfield: Jean Boudriot). * {{DEFAULTSORT:Shark, Hms Royal Navy ship names