HMS Delight explained

Thirteen ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Delight:

• was a discovery vessel wrecked in 1583 off Sable Island. She may not have been part of the Royal Navy, and was possibly part of Sir Humphrey Gilbert's 1583 expedition to Newfoundland.
• was a four-gun hoy purchased in 1686 and sold in 1713.
• was a 14-gun sixth-rate launched in 1709 and sold in 1712.
• was a 14-gun sloop launched in 1778 and foundered in 1781.
• HMS Delight (1801) was an 18-gun sloop, formerly the French corvette Sans Pareille. She was captured in 1801 by and sold in 1805.
• was a 16-gun brig-sloop launched in 1806 and captured by the French in 1808 when she became stranded off Calabria.
• HMS Delight was a 16-gun brig, formerly the French brig Friedland, name vessel of her class of six brigs. captured her in 1808; Delight was paid off in 1810 and sold in 1814.
• was a 10-gun brig-sloop of the launched in 1819 and wrecked in 1824 with the loss of al aboard.^[1] She had been carrying some 103 slaves that she had rescued from Providence Island where they had been stranded when the French brig Lys had wrecked there.^[2]
• was a 10-gun Cherokee-class brig-sloop launched in 1829 and sold in 1844. She served as a Post Office Packet Service packet.
• was a wood screw launched in 1856 and sold in 1867. She was later renamed M. A. Starr.
• was a D-class destroyer launched in 1932 and sunk in 1940.
• HMS Delight was to have been a destroyer, ordered in 1945, but cancelled the following year.
• was a destroyer launched in 1950. She was previously to have been named HMS Disdain, but was renamed in 1946 prior to launching. She was sold in 1970.

References

• Book: Hepper, David J.. 1994. British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail, 1650-1859. Jean Boudriot. Rotherfield. 0-948864-30-3.

Notes and References

1. Hepper (1994), p.158.
2. British and Foreign State Papers (1846), Vol. 12, pp.337-8. (H.M. Stationery Office).