This image is of HMS Trincomalee in her current role of museum ship in Hartlepool. Launched at Bombay, India,in 1817, just after the end of the Napoleonic war, she is a Leda class frigate built in teak. After being fitted out in Portsmouth, UK, Trincomalee was placed in reserve until 1845.
She sailed from Portsmouth in 1847 for the North America and West Indies Station where she helped quell riots in Haiti, stop a threatened invasion of Cuba and serve on anti-slavery patrol. Trincomalee joined the Pacific Squadron on the west coast of Americain 1852 before being put back 'in ordinary' at Chatham in 1857. In 1861 she was towed to Sunderland to become tender to the drill ship HMS Castor training Naval Volunteers. She was placed in reserve again in 1895 before being sold for scrap in 1897.
However she was privately purchased, restored, and renamed as the new HMS Foudroyant to replace an earlier ship of that name wrecked in 1897. She was used in conjunction with HMS Implacable as an accommodation ship, a training ship, and a holiday ship based in Falmouth, then Milford Haven. She remained in service until 1986, after which she was again restored and renamed back to Trincomalee in 1992. Now the centrepiece of the National Museum of the Royal Navy based in Hartlepool, she is the oldest British warship still afloat.