The sixth HMS Vanguard, of the British Royal Navy was a 78-gun (or 80-gun) second-rate ship of the line, launched on 25 August 1835 at Pembroke Yard.

His intention was to give the Royal Navy an advantage in speed (under certain weather conditions), allowing it to force action.

Their V-shaped hull made it difficult to add a steam engine and boilers and to store coal.

[17] The extra weight was low in the ship, exacerbating their excess stability, which made their rolling even worse than before.

Vanguard was commissioned in 1837 by Captain Sir Thomas Fellowes, with the normal picked complement of officers, including Baldwin Walker as First Lieutenant[19] and Mr Miller, one of Symonds's favourite sailing masters.

'[6] At the end of her first three-year commission Captain Fellowes wrote that Vanguard had 'great stability' was 'very easy at sea and works less than ships of her class' and had 'great advantage in all points of sailing.

Wright, ordered the Assistant Surgeon, Robert Thomas Charles Scott, to stomach-pump a drunken seaman.

Captain Fellowes threatened Scott with a court martial and reported him to Sir William Burnett, the Physician-General of the Navy.

[12] Vanguard's captain wrote: 'such an entire change has taken place in her motion at sea, steering and working generally (although she is still deficient in her weights low down) that I can scarcely bring myself to believe she is the same ship.

In the August 1846 trials, Vanguard and Canopus were 'nearly alike in performance, with the former superior in smooth water, and the latter in rough.