Project Beagle was written up today in the Times (the UK one):

In the wake of the Beagle

  Peter Davies              

               

From the all-too-modest service career of HMS Beagle, it could never have been   divined that she was destined to become one of the most famous ships ever to   sail the seven seas. Commissioned in 1820 as a ten-gun brig — a two-masted   square-rigger, and one of the lowlier forms of naval life — she never saw   action, and spent most of her first few years in reserve, moored and   unmanned.

In 1825 the pace of her life quickened, when she was adapted as a survey ship.   A third, fore-and-aft rigged, mast was added, turning her into a barque,   improving her looks and, more importantly, her seakeeping qualities.... Continued