HMS Investigator

Nine ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Investigator. Another was planned, but renamed before being launched:

• HMS Investigator was a 22-gun armed ship purchased in 1798 and taken into service as HMS Xenophon. She was renamed HMS Investigator in 1801 and used as a survey ship. Under the command of explorer Matthew Flinders, she was the first ship to circumnavigate Australia. She was broken up in 1810.
• HMS Investigator was a 16-gun survey brig launched in 1811. She was used as a police ship from 1837 and was broken up in 1857.
• HMS Investigator was a survey sloop purchased in 1823. Her fate is unknown.
• HMS Investigator was a discovery vessel purchased in 1848 to search for Sir John Franklin's lost expedition, and abandoned in the Arctic in 1853.
• HMS Investigator was a wooden paddle survey vessel launched in 1861 and sold in 1869.
• HMS Investigator was a wooden paddle survey vessel launched in 1881 and sold in 1906.
• HMS Investigator was to have been a paddle survey vessel. She was renamed HMS Research in 1887, before being launched in 1888.
• HMS Investigator was a survey vessel purchased in 1903. She was renamed HMS Sealark in 1904 and was sold in mercantile service in 1919.
• HMS Investigator was a survey vessel launched in 1907 and sold in 1934.
• HMIS Investigator was a survey vessel of the Royal Indian Marine purchased in 1934 and sold in 1951.

See also

• HMS Trent was renamed Investigator in 1951 after being converted to a survey ship for the Indian Navy.