HMS Comet, a wood-hulled paddle tug completed in 1822, was the first steam ship built for the Royal Navy.
[3] Comet was built by Boulton, Watt & Co at the yards in Deptford, just outside London.
[3] 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.
[3] Humphry Davy travelled to Norway on the Comet in the summer of 1824 to test his zinc protectors for ships' copper bottoms.