HMS Boreas (1757) after periods at sea, averaging £1,573 in repairs for each year of service compared with £1,261 for comparable vessels built from oak. The frigate was named after Boreas, the Greek god of the north wind and bringer of winter. The naming followed a trend initiated in 1748 by John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, in his capacity as First Lord of the Admiralty, of using figures from classical antiquity as descriptors for naval vessels. A total of six "Coventry"-class vessels were named in this manner; a further ten were named after geographic features including regions, English or Irish rivers, or
Pygmy (Greek mythology) Pygmy (Greek mythology) The Pygmies ( "Pygmaioi", from the adjective πυγμαῖος from πυγμή "pygmē", "the length of the forearm") were a tribe of diminutive humans in Greek mythology. According to the Iliad, they were involved in a constant war with the cranes, which migrated in winter to their homeland on the southern shores of the earth-encircling river Oceanus. One story describes the origin of the age-old battle, speaking of a Pygmy Queen named Gerana who offended the goddess Hera with her boasts of superior beauty, and was transformed into a crane. In art the scene was popular with little Pygmies