Stingray (TV Series) - "Stingray Class"

"Stingray Class"

According to the Stingray comic strip in the weekly Countdown comic there was more than one Stingray-class submarine in the Marineville fleet. They had names like Spearfish, Barracuda, Moray and Thornback and were identified by different numbers on their fins suggesting that the '3' on Stingray's fins did not indicate she was Stingray Mark III after all.

A similar idea was used by author John Theydon in his second Stingray novel, Stingray and the Monster, some years earlier. In the novel, another WASP submarine (unnamed and referred to as Number Thirteen) is hijacked by an old enemy of Commander Shore. Theydon's description of the hijacked boat, both inside and out, is recognisably similar to that of Stingray, with the specific exception that Number Thirteen is stated to not have Stingray's exceptional performance, being limited to around 400 knots rather than the 600 that Stingray is quoted as being able to reach. The implication, never explicitly stated, is that Stingray is an upgraded version of the design. Somewhat later, TV21 mentioned a second "super-sub" entering service with the WASPs—that is, until it is stolen by a Mysteron agent as part of the plot of a Captain Scarlet story.