This paper is concerned with the experimental investigation of transverse vibration characteristics in water of rectangular plates having an inner free cutout. Systematic experiments are carried out to investigate effects of the surrounding water on the added mass and the natural frequency of the plates due to the changes of the aspect ratio, hole size and eccentricity. The main subject is the clamped rectangular plate with a circular hole. For the purpose of comparative evaluations, some other common-type boundary conditions and hole shapes such as ellipses and rectangles are also investigated. Some of the results obtain are as follows; 1) For each given aspect ratio of the plate, there is a hole area ratio which gives a minimum value of the nondimensional frequency parameter for each mode. The hole area ratio increases as the order number of the mode increases. 2) The nondimensinal mass-increment parameter decreases as the aspect ration or the order number of the mode increases. For each given aspect ratio, the parameter the fundamental mode decreases monotonically as the hole area ratio increase. In cases of the second and higher order modes, however, each mode has a hole area ratio which gives a maximum value of the parameter for each aspect ratio more then 2/3. 3) Comparing elliptic holes with rectangular ones with same hole area ratio, nondimensional frequency parameters are almost same for each given ratio of the shorter axises to the longer one. 4) The influences of difference in boundary condion on nondimensional frequency parameters in water are similar to those in air.