HMS Surprise (ship)

HMS "Surprise" is a modern tall ship, built at Lunenberg, Nova Scotia as "Rose" in 1970 to a Phil Bolger design based on the original 18th century Admiralty drawings. She was a replica of HMS|Rose|1757|6, a sixth-rate frigate built in 1757.

The ship was inspected and certified by the United States Coast Guard and operated as a sail training vessel in the 1980s and 1990s, run by the HMS Rose Foundation based in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Although she is known by the national prefix HMS, meaning Her (or His) Majesty's Ship, she is not technically entitled to it as she does not hold a royal warrant.

She was sold to the 20th Century Fox film studio in 2001 to be used in the making of the film ', in which she portrayed the fictional Royal Navy frigate named for HMS|Surprise|1796|2 with a story based on several of the books by Patrick O'Brian. After the film was complete, the ship was leased and then purchased by the San Diego Maritime Museum who have restored her to sailing condition as of September 2007. The ship has officially been reregistered as "HMS Surprise""' in honour of her role in the film [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Rose_%28ship%29] . It is planned that she will sail again on October 28 and November 4, 2007, and also on November 10 and 11 along with the Museum's other tall ships, the schooner Californian and the 1863 barque Star of India.

External links

* [http://www.tallshiprose.org/ Tall ship "Rose"]
* [http://www.sdmaritime.com/contentpage.asp?ContentID=152 "HMS Surprise" at SDMM]
* [http://www.modelshipbuilder.com/models/hms-surprise.html HMS Surprise historically preserved as a wooden model.]