Dundee’s HMS Unicorn a genuine original

Sir, - Recent reports on the safety of re-building aircraft after a crash (Courier, January 4) suggest this to be a reasonable practice, though it is easily demonised.

Certainly, it is only natural to re-use undamaged parts.

In the days of steam, railway locomotives could exchange major parts: boilers, frames – sometimes even names and numbers, to the bafflement of trainspotters.

In the First World War the Royal Navy famously combined the two undamaged halves of HMS Zulu and HMS Nubian to create a new ship, named with uncharacteristic Admiralty humour, HMS Zubian.

A dramatic Dundee exception to this common practice is our impressively original frigate, HMS Unicorn.

Although launched in 1824 to strengthen the fleet worn out by the Napoleonic Wars, Unicorn was not needed for service at sea.

Instead of being rigged, she was roofed over and placed into reserve, in which state she has remained to this day, without ever suffering the indignity of a major rebuild.

HMS Unicorn is now recognised as the most authentic and leastaltered of all the world’s big ships left from the great age of sail but her tranquil survival conceals a grand story of real service to her country: as the base for the Senior Naval Officer Dundee she even took the surrender of a German U-Boat at the end of WW2, surely a unique action for a sailing warship. Roderick Stewart. Dronley House, Dronley.

Picture: DC Thomson. HMS Unicorn is one of a kind.