The Royal Navy has used the name Comet no fewer than 18 times:
HMS Scorpion was a 14-gun two-masted Merlin-class sloop of the Royal Navy, built by Wyatt and Major at Bucklers Hard on the Beaulieu River in Hampshire, England and launched on 8 July 1746.
The Cruizer class was an 18-gun class of brig-sloops of the Royal Navy. Brig-sloops were the same as ship-sloops except for their rigging. A ship-sloop was rigged with three masts whereas a brig-sloop was rigged as a brig with only a fore mast and a main mast.
HMS Gloucester was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy in the 1710s. She participated in the 1701–15 War of the Spanish Succession. The ship was burned to prevent capture after she was damaged in a storm during Commodore George Anson's voyage around the world in 1742.
Thirty-nine vessels of the Royal Navy and its predecessors have borne the name Swallow, as has one dockyard craft, one naval vessel of the British East India Company, and at least two revenue cutters, all after the bird, the Swallow:
The Swan class were built as a 14-gun class of ship sloops for the Royal Navy, although an extra two guns were added soon after completion.
The Merlin class was a class of twenty-one sloops of wooden construction built for the Royal Navy between 1743 and 1746. They were all built by contract with commercial builders to a common design prepared by Jacob Acworth, the Surveyor of the Navy; however, there was a difference, with a platform deck being constructed in the hold in Swallow (i), Merlin, Raven and Swallow (ii), whereas the other seventeen had no platform and thus their depth in hold was nearly twice as much.
HMS Drake was an 8-gun snow-rigged sloop of the Royal Navy, launched in 1741 as the first of three Drake class sloops constructed for convoy duty during the Anglo-Spanish War of Jenkins' Ear from 1739 to 1742. After limited service off the Channel Islands, she was sailed to Gibraltar where she was wrecked in 1742 while under the temporary command of her first lieutenant.
The Hind class was a class of four sloops of wooden construction built for the Royal Navy between 1743 and 1746. Two were built by contract with commercial builders to a common design prepared by Joseph Allin, the Master Shipwright at Deptford Dockyard, and the other two were built in Deptford Dockyard itself.
HMS Vulture was a 10-gun two-masted Hind-class sloop of the Royal Navy, designed by Joseph Allin and built by John Greaves at Limehouse on the Thames River, England and launched on 4 May 1744, during the War of the Austrian Succession. Her name was often written as Vulter.
HMS Jamaica was a 10-gun two-masted Hind-class sloop of the Royal Navy, designed by Joseph Allin and built by him at Deptford Dockyard on the Thames River, England and launched on 17 July 1744. She and her sister Trial were the only sloops to be built in the Royal Dockyards between 1733 and 1748.
The Drake class was a class of three sloops of wooden construction built for the Royal Navy during 1741. All were ordered in 1740, and were the first to be built by contract with commercial builders, although they were to a common design prepared by Jacob Allin, the Surveyor of the Navy. They were the first new sloops to be built since the previous batch of eight in 1732, but they closely followed the characteristics of their predecessors.
HMS Saltash was an 8-gun two-masted sloop of the Royal Navy, built on speculation by Henry Bird at Deptford Wet Dock on the Thames River, England. She was purchased while building by the Navy Board at the end of August 1741 to replace the 1732-built sloop of the same name. The new sloop was launched on 3 September.
The Wolf class was a class of three sloops of wooden construction built for the Royal Navy during 1741–43. They were ordered in 1741, 1742 and 1743 respectively, and were the first to increase significantly in size from the 200 burthen tons which had been the normal size from 1728; they were to a common design prepared by Jacob Allin, the Surveyor of the Navy. For the latter two vessels, the design was modified by the addition of 6 inches to their depth in hold.
The Bonetta group was a batch of eight sloops of wooden construction built for the Royal Navy during 1732. Seven were ordered on 4 May 1732 to a common specification prepared by Jacob Allin, the Surveyor of the Navy. An additional vessel – Trial – was re-ordered on 6 July to be built to the same specification. The actual individual design was left up to the Master Shipwright in each Royal Dockyard at which they were built.
HMS Wolf was a 14-gun snow-rigged sloop of the Royal Navy, launched in 1742 as the first of three Wolf-class sloops constructed for action against Spanish privateers during the War of Jenkins' Ear.
The Alderney class was a class of three sloops of wooden construction built for the Royal Navy between 1755 and 1757. All three were built by contract with commercial builders to a common design prepared by William Bately, the Surveyor of the Navy.
The Snake-class ship-sloops were a class of four Royal Navy sloops-of-war built in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Though ships of the class were designed with the hull of a brig, their defining feature of a ship-rig changed their classification to that of a ship-sloop rather than that of a brig-sloop.
Royal Navy