HMS Viper was a Viper-class torpedo boat destroyer (or "TBD") built for the British Royal Navy in 1899 by Hawthorn Leslie and Company at Hebburn on the River Tyne.

Following the success of the turbine-powered yacht Turbinia, the British Admiralty, whose previous attempts at acquiring destroyers faster than the standard "thirty-Knotters", the reciprocating-engined Albatross, Express and Arab had been unsuccessful, placed an order on 4 March 1898 with Parsons Marine for a turbine-powered destroyer, HMS Viper.

Parsons subcontracted the ship's hull to Hawthorn Leslie and Company of Tyneside, with Viper being laid down later that year.

The destroyer fought clear, but soon grounded again and lost her propellers, finally drifting broadside onto the rocks.

[10] The subsequent enquiry found that the commanding officer, Lieutenant William Speke, had failed to exercise proper precautions while steaming in fog.

The navigating officer, Sub-Lieutenant Kenneth Mackenzie Grieve, was informed that he had "incurred their Lordships' displeasure", having inserted the missing data into the log following the wreck.