RV Triton
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The RV Triton, is a trimaran vessel owned by the Gardline maritime survey company and a former prototype British warship demonstrator for the QinetiQ defence research company.
The Triton name is presumably a deliberate reference to the maritime god incorporating the prefix "tri" which relates to the vessel's three parallel hulls. The outriggers are thinner and much shorter than the dominant central hull.
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Service with QinetiQ
The Triton was designed as a demonstrater to prove that the trimaran concept would work successfully in a large warship. Following its launch in 2000, the ship began an extensive series of trials in 2001, which covered general ship handling, performance, sea-keeping behaviour, but also more specific areas to its design that the Royal Navy had no experience of - for example, a series of docking manouveres were undertaken by the pilot boats of HMNB Portsmouth to determine the problems of docking a large trimaran, while the ship underwent Replenishment at Sea alongside HMS Argyll and the tanker RFA Brambleleaf to ascertain the characteristics of a trimaran and a monohull replenishing at the same time. The Triton also undertook trials of helicopter take off and landing.
Service with Gardline Marine Sciences Limited
Following the end of the Future Surface Combatant project, it was decided that the Triton was no longer necessary, so in 2005, she was sold to Gardline Marine Sciences Limited for conversion into a maritime survey vessel; she will be used as part of the Civil Hydrography Programme on behalf of the United Kingdom's Maritime and Coastguard Agency.