HMS Trincomalee is a Royal Navy Leda-class sailing frigate built shortly following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. She is now restored as a museum ship in Hartlepool, UK.

HMS Trincomalee was ordered in 1812 during the Napoleonic Wars from India because of a lack of oak in England. HMS Trincomalee was built of teak in India. She was finally launched in 1817 only to be promptly laid up in reserve on her arrival in Portsmouth Dockyard in 1819.  HMS Trincomalee was cut down to a 26-gun sixth-rate corvette at Portsmouth between April 1845 and 1847.

After serving as a hulk, HMS Trincomalee was restored to her original appearance. She now serves as a museum ship.

The Trincomalee is one of only two surviving British frigates of this era her near-sister HMS Unicorn (of the modified Leda class) is now a museum ship in Dundee.

The Trincomalee was built in Bombay, India in 1817 by the Wadia family of shipwrights in teak, due to oak shortages in Britain as a result of shipbuilding drives for the Napoleonic Wars. The ship was named Trincomalee after an action in 1782 between the Royal and French navies off Trincomalee, which was considered to be of strategic importance by the European colonial powers who believed it held the key to the control of the East Coast of India.

The Trincomalee holds the distinction of being the oldest British warship still afloat as HMS Victory, although 52 years her senior, is in dry dock. Cannons from the period can be seen at the naval museum in Trincomalee

Now listed as part of the National Historic Fleet, Core Collection, following her recent restoration HMS Trincomalee has become the centrepiece of the historic dockyard museum in Hartlepool, United Kingdom