HMS ''Surprise'' or ''Surprize'' is the name of several ships. These include:

British Royal Navy

Thirteen ships of the British

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 ''Surprise'' or HMS ''Surprize'', including: * , a 20-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 ...

launched in 1746 and sold in 1770. * , a 28-gun sixth rate launched in 1774 and sold in 1783. * HMS ''Surprize'', an 18-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 ...

, formerly 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 ...

''Bunker Hill'', of Salem, captured on 23 December 1778 at Grand Cul De Sac Bay,

Saint Lucia Saint Lucia ( acf, Sent Lisi, french: Sainte-Lucie) is an island country of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean. The island was previously called Iouanalao and later Hewanorra, names given by the native Arawaks and Caribs, two Amerindian ...

and sold in 1783. The French may have purchased her with her becoming the ''Surprise'' that was broken up at Rochefort in 1789. * , a 10-gun cutter purchased in 1780 and sold in 1786. * , a 10-gun cutter purchased in 1786 and sold in 1792. * , originally the French corvette ''Unité'', launched in 1794, captured in 1796 by ; the Royal Navy reclassified her as a sixth-rate

frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and ...

. She was sold in 1802. This is the ship featured in the

Aubrey–Maturin series The Aubrey–Maturin series is a sequence of nautical historical novels—20 completed and one unfinished—by English author Patrick O'Brian, set during the Napoleonic Wars and centring on the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey of the Roy ...

. * , a 38-gun frigate, previously named ''Jacobs'' and launched in 1812. She was hulked as a

prison ship A prison ship, often more accurately described as a prison hulk, is a current or former seagoing vessel that has been modified to become a place of substantive detention for convicts, prisoners of war or civilian internees. While many nation ...

in 1822 and sold in 1837. * , a 2-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 ...

on the Canadian Lakes. She was formerly the US , captured in 1814 and listed in service until 1832. * , a wooden screw

gunvessel A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies. History Pre-steam ...

, launched in 1856 and broken up in 1866. * , a despatch vessel launched in 1885. She was renamed HMS ''Alacrity'' in 1913 and was sold in 1919. * , a luxury yacht built in 1896 by Ailsa Shipbuilding for a wealthy Philadelphia banker. Was the Royal Yacht of King Leopold II of Belgium 1899-1909, Later in Russian Navy service as ''Razsvet''. Seized from Russia in 1918 and commissioned as a dispatch vessel. She was named ''Surprise'' in 1920. She was sold in 1923 but returned to service in 1939 and was renamed HMS ''Surprise''. She caught fire and sank off Lagos Harbor in 1942. * , a

Yarrow later M-class destroyer The Yarrow Later M class were a class of seven destroyers built for the Royal Navy that saw service during World War I. They were based on the preceding and successful Yarrow M class with minor alterations; notably reduced beam to compensate for ...

launched in 1916 and sunk in 1917. * , a frigate. She had been laid down as HMS ''Loch Carron'' but was renamed HMS ''Gerrans Bay'' in 1944 before being launched in 1945. She was renamed HMS ''Surprise'' and used as a despatch vessel later that year, and was broken up in 1965.

Other ships

* , a modern replica of the 18th century Royal Navy frigate HMS ''Rose'', modified to represent the 1796 HMS ''Surprise'' in the film '' Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World'', and now owned by the

San Diego Maritime Museum The Maritime Museum of San Diego, established in 1948, preserves one of the largest collections of historic sea vessels in the United States. Located on the San Diego Bay, the centerpiece of the museum's collection is the '' Star of India'', an 18 ...

Citations

References

* *Demerliac, Alain (1996) ''La Marine De Louis XVI: Nomenclature Des Navires Français De 1774 À 1792''. (Nice: Éditions OMEGA). {{DEFAULTSORT:Surprise, Hms Royal Navy ship names ja:サプライズ (軍艦)

British Royal Navy

Other ships

See also

Citations

References