Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

(2003)

We don't usually list a movie just because it happens to have a Rhode Islander among the cast, but we don't mind making the odd exception. In this case the Rhode Islander in question is a ship, the HMS Rose, which plays the part of the HMS Surprise in Master and Commander.

Although she was built in 1970 at Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Rose spent most of the 1970s and '80s as a dockside attraction in Newport. She is a replica of the original HMS Rose, a ship captured from the French by the British in 1757 which was refitted and used against the colonies in the American Revolution. The original Rose saw a lot of action in Rhode Island waters, conducting anti-smuggling operations and raiding Block Island and Jamestown for supplies.

The replica Rose was purchased by Twentieth Century Fox in 2001, and was subsequently sailed from Newport to Puerto Rico, through the Panama Canal, and up the western coast of Mexico to San Diego in 2002, a thirty-six-day journey.

After her stint in Master and Commander, Rose was refitted for use in the 2011 fim Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. As of 2023 she works as a dockside attraction in San Diego under the name Surprise.