:For other types of "Launch" see Launch

A Motor Launch (ML) is a small military vessel in British navy service. They were designed for harbour defense and submarine chasing or for armed high speed Air Sea Rescue.

The first Motor Launches entered service in the First World War. These were 550 80-foot long vessels built by the US Elco company for the Admiralty receiving the designations ML-1 to ML-550 They served between 1916 and the end of the war with the Royal Navy defending the coast from German submarines.

Type	Length	Weight	Speed	Built	Total	Lost	Designed for
Fairmile A motor launch	110 ft	57 tons	25 knots	1939	12
Fairmile B Motor Launch		85 tons		1940-45	1,284		Submarine chasing. Later adapted for Air Sea Rescue
Harbour Defence Motor Launch		54 tons		1940-45	486	47	Defending harbours; anti-submarine
RAF Type 2 Whaleback		21.5 tons		1940-42	70		Rescuing downed aircrew, particularly in the English Channel

Post war many motor launches were taken on as pleasure boats and a number of them are on the National Register of Historic Vessels.

References

See also

• Motor Gun Boat
• Motor Torpedo Boat
• Coastal Forces of the Royal Navy
• R boat - German WWII equivalent

• Dark class fast patrol boat
• River class fast launch

External links

• UK National Register of Historic Vessels
• Naval Museum of Manitoba
• Juno Beach website
• A Short History of HMS St Christopher. Royal Navy Coastal Forces training base, mainly for MLs
• Stoker Harold Siddall Royal Navy, his service in ML.1030 and capture in Crete 1941