United Kingdom
In the British Royal Navy, it refers to the king or queen of the United Kingdom as appropriate at the time. Formerly, HBMS for His or Her Britannic Majesty's Ship was also used.
Submarines in Her Majesty's service have the prefix HM Submarine. Similarly, the Royal Yacht Britannia, which was a commissioned ship in the Royal Navy, was known as HMY Britannia. Otherwise all ships in the Royal Navy are known as HM Ships, though formerly when a distinction was made between three-masted ship-rigged ships and smaller vessels they would be called HM Frigate X, or HM Sloop Y.
The prefix "HMS" is also used by shore establishments which are commissioned "stone frigates" in the Royal Navy. Examples include HMS Excellent, which is a training school located on an island in Portsmouth Harbour, and HMS Vulcan, in Caithness in the Highland area of Scotland, which is established to test the design of nuclear power systems for use in submarines.
The sample ship name used by the Royal Navy to signify a hypothetical vessel is HMS Nonsuch. This is a name that has been used by the Royal Navy in the past; on the eve of World War II the name devolved to the Royal Canadian Navy. HMCS Nonsuch is at present the "stone frigate" of the Edmonton Division of the Canadian Naval Reserve.
British government ships not in the Royal Navy have other designations, such as "RFA" for ships in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary.
Read more about this topic: Her Majesty's Ship
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