Lt Cmdr (Retd) Roderick Stewart visited us this evening with tales of HMS Unicorn and the Sailing Frigates.

His Majesty's Ship Unicorn, of 46 guns, was built for the Royal Navy in the Naval Dockyard at Chatham and launched in 1824.   She is now the world's last "intact" warship from the days of sail, one of the six oldest ships still in existence and Scotland's only preserved warship.

HMS Unicorn was designed as one of the last of the successful Leda class frigates, 150 feet long in the hull and principally armed with a combination of 18-pounder long guns and 32-pounder carronades.They included such fine ships as the famous  HMS Trincomalee which was recently extensively reconstructed at Hartlepool, and which is the only ship afloat in Britain older than Unicorn.

The photograph shows Roderick(left) with Rotarian Iain Brown who was his host for the evening.