Merlin and the first dedicated coastal survey

Merlin is presented as the first warship dedicated to survey work, carrying Grenville Collins during the comprehensive survey later published as Great Britain's Coasting Pilot. Collins's publication still reproduced some errors from Dutch maps, reminding viewers that even landmark surveys inherited weaknesses from earlier sources. Merlin's earlier career also demonstrates how a small vessel could become caught in high politics. A Dutch commander's uncertainty over whether the yacht merited a gun salute fed a dispute in which maritime custom and precedent mattered as much as written rules. The episode places the beginnings of specialist surveying alongside the status rituals preceding the Third Anglo-Dutch War.