HMS Wild Swan was an Admiralty modified W-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy. She was one of four destroyers ordered in 1918 from Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson, Wallsend-on-Tyne under the 14th Order for Destroyers of the Emergency War Program of 1917–18. She was the second Royal Navy ship to carry the name, after the sloop HMS Wild Swan in 1876. Like her sisters, she was completed too late to see action in the First World War.
HMS Adventure, pennant number M23, was a minelaying cruiser of the Royal Navy built in the 1920s that saw service during the Second World War. Her commander between 1928 and 1929 was the future First Sea Lord John H. D. Cunningham.
Sankaty was a propeller-driven steamer that served as a ferry to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket in Massachusetts; in Rockland, Maine; Stamford, Connecticut and Oyster Bay, Long Island in the United States from 1911 to 1940. During World War II, the ship was requisitioned by the Royal Canadian Navy for service as a minelayer and maintenance vessel along the Canadian Atlantic coast. Following the war the ship returned to a ferry, working the Wood Islands, Prince Edward Island and Caribou, Nova Scotia route in Canada from 1947 until 1964. While being towed to the breaker's yard, the ship sank off the coast of Nova Scotia on October 27, 1964.
PS Ryde is a paddle steamer that was commissioned and run by Southern Railway as a passenger ferry between mainland England and the Isle of Wight from 1937 to 1969, with an interlude during the Second World War where she served as a minesweeper and then an anti-aircraft ship, seeing action at D-Day. After many years abandoned on moorings at Island Harbour Marina on the River Medina, she was purchased by the PS Ryde Trust in late 2018, with the intention of raising money for her restoration. That project was abandoned in January 2019.
TSMV Shanklin was a passenger ferry that operated between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight between 1951 and 1980. Renamed Prince Ivanhoe she went on to become a pleasure cruiser in the Bristol Channel but in 1981 sank off the Welsh coast on her first season.
There are currently three different ferry companies that operate vessels carrying passengers and, on certain routes, vehicles across the Solent, the stretch of sea that separates the Isle of Wight from mainland England. These are Wightlink, Red Funnel and Hovertravel.
Dieppe was a steam passenger ferry that was built in 1905 for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. She was requisitioned during the First World War for use as a troopship and later as a hospital ship HMS Dieppe, returning to her owners postwar. She passed to the Southern Railway on 1 January 1923. In 1933 she was sold to W E Guinness and converted to a private diesel yacht, Rosaura. She was requisitioned in the Second World War for use as an armed boarding vessel, HMS Rosaura. She struck a mine and sank off Tobruk, Libya on 18 March 1941.
HMAS Goorangai was a 223-ton auxiliary minesweeper of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). She was built in 1919 for the Government of New South Wales, then sold in 1926 to the fishing company Cam & Sons. The trawler was requisitioned for military service following the outbreak of World War II, converted into a minesweeper, and assigned to Melbourne. She was sunk in an accidental collision with MV Duntroon in 1940, becoming the RAN's first loss of World War II, and the first RAN surface ship to be lost in wartime.
Yandra was a 990-ton coastal steamer built by Burmeister and Wain, Copenhagen in 1928 for Coast Steamships Ltd for service in the Australian state of South Australia. She was requisitioned by the Royal Australia Navy in June 1940 during the Second World War for conversion to a minesweeper and anti-submarine vessel and was commissioned on 22 September 1940 as HMAS Yandra. She returned to civilian service in 1946. She ran aground during dense fog onto South Neptune Island on 25 January 1959 and was subsequently written off.
Shepperton Ferry was a train ferry built for the Southern Railway in 1934. Requisitioned by the Royal Navy during World War II, she served as the minelayer, troopship and heavy lift ship HMS Shepperton. She was returned to the Southern Railway post-war and saw service with them and their successor British Railways until 1972, when she was scrapped.
August Wriedt was a weather ship that was built in 1929 as the fishing vessel Dolly Kühling. She was renamed August Wriedt in 1935. The ship was requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine in 1940 and captured by HMS Malvernian on 29 May 1941. She served as HMS Maria, a wreck dispersal vessel, until 1950 and was scrapped in 1951.
TSS Train Ferry No. 3 was a freight vessel built for the British Army War Office in 1917.
TSS Malines was a passenger vessel built for the Great Eastern Railway in 1921.
PS Portsdown was a passenger vessel built for the Southern Railway in 1928. She was one of the civilian ships that participated in the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940 and was sunk by a naval mine a year later.
PS Whippingham was a passenger paddle steamer built for the Southern Railway in 1930 for the ferry route to the Isle of Wight. After distinguished war service, she returned to ferry work until she was scrapped in 1963.
PS Sandown was a passenger vessel built for the Southern Railway in 1934 and later served with distinction in the Royal Navy during the Second World War.
HMS Snaefell was a paddle steamer, built at John Brown & Company's Clydebank shipyard for the Barry Railway Company and launched on 1907 as the PS Barry. Built to serve as a pleasure steamer carrying passengers on the Bristol Channel, she was quickly transferred to the ownership of Bristol Channel Passenger Boats which in 1911 became part of P & A Campbell.
TSMV Brading was a passenger ferry that operated between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight between 1948 and 1986.
TSMV Southsea was a passenger ferry that operated between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight between 1948 and 1987.
RMSKnight of Malta was a cargo liner built by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd in 1929. She was owned and operated by Cassar Co. Ltd. in Malta. During World War II, she was requisitioned by the Admiralty as an armed boarding vessel and stores carrier. She ran aground off Libya on the night of 2–3 March 1941, with no casualties.
