If we allow any ship from any navy anytime, then my vote goes to the Santa Maria, Columbus’ flagship. She was chartered from a private owner, but placed under Columbus’ command for his first journey, for which he was given the rank of captain-general before departure together with the promise of a promotion to admiral (“of the Ocean Sea”) in case of success. So I think it’s fair to consider her part of the Spanish navy.
But just like Nelson and HMS Victory, you have to ask yourself if Columbus could not have achieved the same results if Nina or Pinta or some other carrack were his flagship.
Then that other ship would be the most important one. But it isn’t, because as a matter of fact Columbus did not have another flagship. In my view, the importance of a person, event or object is not affected by the counterfactual that, in another universe, some other person, event or object would have assumed that role.
I think we’ve had this debate upthread, but I think most important means a ship uniquely qualified to influence all navy ships that followed, like Monitor, or Dreadnaught, or Nautilus. A lot of “great” ships have been named, but many are no more important than the particular musket that fired the shot heard ‘round the world.
Agreed there’s a huge difference between the ship that was most influential as a piece of novel technology, and the ship whose crew used her most significantly in some battle(s) someplace that influenced the outcome of a war.
Both are useful interesting conversations. But it’s a darn good bet that almost every ship that’s a decent contender for one award is a total also-ran for the other.
cf. Myspace the tech pioneer and Facebook the war-winner.
Correct. I lean towards the Monitor, because the difference between the USS Monitor and the HMS Victory is like night and day, whereas the difference between the pre-dreadnought battleship and a dreadnought is not that much- but I agree the HMS Dreadnought was a big game changer. And the Nautilus also changed wars a lot.
But I understand the reverence towards the Big E.
I nominate the Schooner Hannah from Marblehead, Massachusetts, the first ship of the American Navy, although this Wiki article is the first in which I’ve ever seen the USS prefix):
Agreed. I recall when it returned to service in 1968, when I was in Vietnam. It was a huge morale booster for that one year. I remember hearing those monster shells going overhead toward a target 20+ miles away; they sounded like freight trains.