In my opinion the HMS Beagle would be the ideal ship.
The ship was converted into a survey ship and had never been used in military operations before.
Charles Darwin's journey on the ship was the basis for his entire scientific work.
The ship was also successful in a Lego Ideas competition: https://ideas.lego.com/projects/7a2318bf-367f-4bf9-bbfd-1d4d93189a45/updates
There would also be a matching free gift: https://ideas.lego.com/projects/8ebd2479-c00b-419d-85a6-80529c506a8f
And there are already Mocs in Minifig scale, for example: https://www.flickr.com/photos/199924517@N07/albums/72177720314209221/
