- References
{{Other ships|HMS Comet}}{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2016}}{{Infobox ship image| Ship image= | Ship caption=
}}{{Infobox ship career | Hide header= | Ship country=United Kingdom | United Kingdom|naval}} | Ship name=Comet | Ship namesake= | Ship ordered= | Ship builder=Deptford Dockyard[1] | Ship laid down=21 November 1821[1] | Ship launched=23 May 1822[1] | Ship commissioned= | Ship in service= 1822–1869[1] | Ship identification= | Ship motto= | Ship nickname= | Ship fate= | Ship notes= | Ship badge=
}}{{Infobox ship characteristics | Ship class= | 239|LT|t}}[1] | 35.1|m|ftin|1|abbr=on}} overall[1]{{convert|30.8|m|ftin|1|abbr=on}} PP[1] | 3.7|m|ftin|1|abbr=on}}[1] | Ship draught= | Ship power= | Ship propulsion=Steam engine with paddle wheels[1] | 7.5|kn|lk=in}}[1] | Ship range= | Ship complement= | Ship notes=
}} | HMS Comet, a wood-hulled paddle tug completed in 1822, was the first steam ship built for the Royal Navy.[1]Comet was built at the yards in Deptford by Boulton, Watt & Co, which was at the time just outside London, in 1822.[1][2] She was ordered as a tug, for towing ships out of harbour when the wind was not enough to allow them to move by themselves, specifically "to be employed in towing HM ships in the Thames and Medway".[1] The ship was designed by Oliver Lang, the master shipwright at Woolwich Dockyard. She was fitted with a two-mast schooner rig, as well as a twin cylinder side-lever engine, which produced 80 nominal horsepower.[1]Humphry Davy travelled on the Comet to Norway to test his zinc protectors for ships' copper bottoms in the summer of 1824.[3]On 10 December 1868 Comet was ordered to be broken up in Portsmouth Dockyard.[1][4] References 1. ^1 2 3 4 {{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=imFEBgAAQBAJ|title=British Warships in the Age of Sail 1817–1863: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates|last=Winfield|first=Rif|date=2014-04-30|publisher=Seaforth Publishing|isbn=978-1-4738-4962-4|page=294|language=en}}
2. ^1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 {{Cite ship register|register=MSI|id=223943|shipname=Comet|accessdate=23 March 2016}}
3. ^Letter from Davy to the Navy Board, 29 June 1824, National Archives, ADM106/1504, f.126
4. ^{{cite news |title=Portsmouth, Portsea and Gosport |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000231/18681212/056/0005 |accessdate=27 March 2019 |work=Hampshire Chronicle |issue=vol XCVI, no 5230 |publisher=The British Newspaper Archive (subscription required) |date=12 December 1868 |location=Southampton |page=5}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Comet}} 4 : Ships of the Royal Navy|Tugboats of the United Kingdom|Paddle steamers|1822 ships |