A barracks ship or barracks barge or berthing barge, or in civilian use accommodation vessel or accommodation ship, is a ship or a non-self-propelled barge containing a superstructure of a type suitable for use as a temporary barracks for sailors or other military personnel. A barracks ship, a military form of a dormitory ship, may also be used as a receiving unit for sailors who need temporary residence prior to being assigned to their ship. The United States Navy used to call them Yard Repair Berthing and Messing with designations YRBM and YRBM(L) and now classes them as either Auxiliary Personnel Barracks (APB) or Auxiliary Personnel Lighter (aka barge) (APL).
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Accommodation ship in the context of HMS Essex (1901)
HMS Essex was one of 10 Monmouth-class armoured cruisers built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. Upon completion in 1904 she was assigned to the 2nd Cruiser Squadron of the Channel Fleet. The ship was placed in reserve in March 1906 and recommissioned in 1909 for service with the 4th Cruiser Squadron on the North America and West Indies Station. In 1912, Essex returned home and was assigned to the Training Squadron of the Home Fleet. After a refit the following year, she rejoined the 4th Cruiser Squadron in early 1914.
After the beginning of World War I in August, the ship captured a German merchantman the following month. Essex spent most of the first half of the war in the Atlantic Ocean, escorting convoys and searching for German commerce raiders. The ship captured another German merchantman in mid-1916 and was reduced to second-line roles such as depot ship and accommodation ship a few months later. She was paid off in 1919 and sold for scrap two years later.
View the full Wikipedia page for HMS Essex (1901)Accommodation ship in the context of Training ship
A training ship is a ship used to train students as sailors. The term is mostly used to describe ships employed by navies to train future officers. Essentially there are two types: those used for training at sea and old hulks used to house classrooms. As with receiving ships or accommodation ships, which were often hulked warships in the 19th century, when used to bear on their books the shore personnel of a naval station (as under section 87 of the Naval Discipline Act 1866 (29 & 30 Vict. c. 109), the provisions of the act only applied to officers and men of the Royal Navy borne on the books of a warship), that were generally replaced by shore facilities commissioned as stone frigates, most "Training Ships" of the British Sea Cadet Corps, by example, are shore facilities (although the corps has floating Training Ships also, including TS Royalist).
The hands-on aspect provided by sail training has also been used as a platform for everything from semesters at sea for undergraduate oceanography and biology students to character-building for youths.
View the full Wikipedia page for Training ship