HMS Resolution (1771)
Resolution and Adventure with fishing craft in Matavai Bay by William Hodges, painted 1776, shows the two ships at anchor in Tahiti in August 1773.
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| History | |
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 Great Britain
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| Name: | HMS Resolution |
| Builder: | Fishburn, Whitby |
| Launched: | 1770 |
| Acquired: | November 1771 as Marquis of Granby |
| Renamed: |
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| Captured: | By the French on 10 June 1782 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | ex-mercantile collier |
| Tons burthen: | 462 bm |
| Length: |
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| Beam: | 30 ft 6 in (9.30 m) |
| Draught: | 13 ft 1 in (3.99 m) |
| Propulsion: | Sails |
| Complement: | 112, including 20 marines |
| Armament: |
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HMS Resolution was a sloop of the Royal Navy, a converted merchant collier purchased by the Navy and adapted, in which Captain James Cook made his second and third voyages of exploration in the Pacific. She impressed him enough that he called her "the ship of my choice", and "the fittest for service of any I have seen."
Resolution began her career as the North Sea collier Marquis of Granby, launched at Whitby in 1770, and purchased by the Royal Navy in 1771 for £4,151 (equivalent to £490,777.23 today). She was originally registered as HMS Drake, but fearing this would upset the Spanish, she was soon renamed Resolution, on 25 December 1771. She was fitted out at Deptford with the most advanced navigational aids of the day, including an azimuth compass made by Henry Gregory, ice anchors, and the latest apparatus for distilling fresh water from sea water. Her armament consisted of 12 6-pounder guns and 12 swivel guns. At his own expense Cook had brass door-hinges installed in the great cabin. It was originally planned that the naturalist Joseph Banks and an appropriate entourage would sail with Cook, so a heightened waist, an additional upper deck and a raised poop deck were built to suit Banks. This refit cost £10,080.12.9d. However, in sea trials the ship was found to be top-heavy, and under Admiralty instructions the offending structures were removed in a second refit at Sheerness, at a further cost of £882.3.0d. Banks subsequently refused to travel under the resulting "adverse conditions" and Johann Reinhold Forster and his son, George, replaced him.
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