Sixteen 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 borne the name HMS ''Viper'', or HMS ''Vipere'', after the members of the

Viperidae The Viperidae (vipers) are a family of snakes found in most parts of the world, except for Antarctica, Australia, Hawaii, Madagascar, and various other isolated islands. They are venomous and have long (relative to non-vipers), hinged fangs tha ...

family: * 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 1746. She was converted into 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 ...

in 1755 and renamed HMS ''Lightning''. She was sold in 1762. * was a 10-gun sloop launched in 1756. She was wrecked in the

Gulf of Saint Lawrence , image = Baie de la Tour.jpg , alt = , caption = Gulf of St. Lawrence from Anticosti National Park, Quebec , image_bathymetry = Golfe Saint-Laurent Depths fr.svg , alt_bathymetry = Bathymetry ...

in bad weather while escorting a convoy in 1779. * was the Massachusetts privateer schooner ''Viper'' that captured on 26 September 1776. She was purchased in 1777 and broken up in New York in 1779. * was a 6-gun

galley A galley is a type of ship that is propelled mainly by oars. The galley is characterized by its long, slender hull, shallow draft, and low freeboard (clearance between sea and gunwale). Virtually all types of galleys had sails that could be used ...

, the former

South Carolina navy A South Carolina Navy has been formed twice by the State of South Carolina. The first time was during the American Revolutionary War, in which the state purchased and outfitted armed vessels independent of the Continental Navy. The second time ...

's ''Rutledge'', captured on 4 November 1779 at Tybee and listed until 1785. * HMS ''Viper'' was a 14-gun cutter purchased in 1780 as ''Greyhound''; in 1781 she was renamed ''Viper''. She was sold in 1809. * was a 4-gun

xebec A xebec ( or ), also spelled zebec, was a Mediterranean sailing ship that was used mostly for trading. Xebecs had a long overhanging bowsprit and aft-set mizzen mast. The term can also refer to a small, fast vessel of the sixteenth to nineteenth ...

, formerly a French

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 ...

. She was captured in 1793, but foundered in Hyères Bay later that year during the evacuation of

Toulon Toulon (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Tolon , , ) is a city on the French Riviera and a large port on the Mediterranean coast, with a major naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, and the Provence province, Toulon is th ...

. * was a 16-gun

brig-sloop In the 18th century and most of the 19th, a sloop-of-war in the Royal Navy was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. The rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above; thus, the term ''sloop-of-war'' enc ...

, formerly a French privateer, which captured in 1794. ''Vipere'' foundered in the estuary of the

River Shannon The River Shannon ( ga, Abhainn na Sionainne, ', '), at in length, is the longest river in the British Isles. It drains the Shannon River Basin, which has an area of , – approximately one fifth of the area of the island of Ireland. The Shan ...

on 2 January 1797 with the loss of her entire crew of 120 men. * 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 tw ...

purchased in 1794 and broken up in 1802. * was launched at Cowes in 1805 as the mercantile schooner ''Princess Charlotte''. The Royal Navy purchased her in 1807. The 4-gun schooner disappeared in February 1809 while sailing from Cadiz to Gibraltar and was presumed to have foundered with all hands. * was an 8-gun cutter launched in 1809 as the civilian vessel ''Niger''. She was purchased that same year and sold in 1814. * was a 10-gun

gun-brig A gun-brig was a small brig-rigged warship that enjoyed popularity in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, during which large numbers were purchased or built. In general these were vessels of under 200 tons burthen, and thus smaller than ...

purchased in 1810. She was possibly renamed ''Mohawk'' later that year, and is not present on the navy list of 1811. *HMS ''Viper'' - tender to , c. 1820-21. * 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 ...

launched in 1831 and broken up in 1851. * was an wooden-hulled 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 1854 and sold in 1862. * was an iron armoured gunvessel launched in 1865. She was used for harbour service from 1890, as a tank vessel from 1901 and was sold in 1908. * was a launched in 1899 and wrecked in 1901.

Other vessels

HM Customs and Excise and the

Bombay Marine The Royal Indian Navy (RIN) was the naval force of British India and the Dominion of India. Along with the Presidency armies, later the Indian Army, and from 1932 the Royal Indian Air Force, it was one of the Armed Forces of British India. Fr ...

, the naval arm of the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

, also had cutters or other vessels named ''Viper''.

References

Citations Bibliography * *Grocott, Terence (1997) ''Shipwrecks of the revolutionary & Napoleonic eras'' (Chatham). * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Viper, Hms Royal Navy ship names