HMS Indefatigable

Seven ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Indefatigable:

• HMS Indefatigable was a 64-gun third-rate ship of the line launched in 1784, razeed to a 38-gun frigate in 1795 and broken up in 1816. This was the ship popularised by C. S. Forester in the early volumes of his Hornblower series of novels.
• HMS Indefatigable was to have been a 50-gun fourth rate. She was ordered in 1832 but cancelled in 1834.
• HMS Indefatigable was a 50-gun fourth rate launched in 1848, loaned as a training ship after 1865, and sold in 1914.
• HMS Indefatigable was an Apollo-class second class cruiser launched in 1891, renamed HMS Melpomene in 1910, and sold in 1913.
• HMS Indefatigable was an Indefatigable-class battlecruiser launched in 1909 and sunk at the Battle of Jutland in 1916.
• HMS Indefatigable was a despatch vessel launched in 1883 as HMS Phaeton. She was sold as a training ship named Indefatigable in 1913, was repurchased in 1941 and renamed HMS Carrick II before being scrapped in 1947.
• HMS Indefatigable was an Implacable-class aircraft carrier launched in 1942 and scrapped in 1956.

Other vessels

• "His Majesty's armed defence ship Indefatigable", under the command of George Andrews, recaptured the Melcombe on 21 June 1804. This Indefatigable appears to have been an hired armed ship that served between 1804 and 1805, though one source has her having been purchased in 1804 and sold in 1805. A later source does not list her at all, neither as a purchase nor as a hired vessel.
• In fiction: The Indefatigable (aka "The Indie") was one of the key ships in the Horatio Hornblower series of novels by C. S. Forester.

See also

The Wiktionary entry for indefatigable

References

• Lyon, David (1993) Sailing Navy List: all the ships of the Royal Navy, built, purchased and captured, 1688-1860. (Conway Maritime Press). ISBN 9780851776170
• Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 1861762461.