HMS Valerian was an Arabis-class sloop of the Royal Navy, built by Charles Rennoldson and Company, South Shields, and launched 21 February 1916.

The sloop was not involved in combat operations, although it was briefly suspected that she had sunk the German submarine SM U-99 in the northern North Sea in July 1917.

She last radioed after sighting Gibb's Hill Lighthouse early in the morning of 22 October 1926, at which time the crew saw no sign of an approaching storm.

The crew were forced to turn southward to obtain sea room from the reefline lest they be driven on the rocks, and headed directly into the storm.

She fought the storm for more than five hours, but after the eye passed overhead conditions became more dangerous with the wind more powerful and no longer coming from the same direction as the sea.

The raft was slowly losing its buoyancy and as everyone wanted, as far as possible, to sit on the edge, it capsized about every 20 minutes, which was exhausting; we all swallowed water in the process and the effort of climbing back again began to tell.

When the centre of the storm passed over Bermuda the anemometer at the Royal Naval Dockyard measured 138 mph (222 km/h) at 13:00 UTC, before the wind destroyed it.