Livadia (yacht, 1880)
Encyclopedia
The Livadia was an imperial yacht
of the House of Romanov built in 1879–1880 to replace a yacht of the same name
that had sunk off the coast of Crimea
in 1878. The new Livadia, intended for service on the Black Sea
, was a radically novel ship conceived by Vice Admiral
Andrey Popov
, designed by naval architect
Erast Gulyaev
and built by John Elder & Co.
of Govan
on Clyde
. The Livadia continued Popov's line of circular ships
although this time Popov sacrificed geometrical perfection for seagoing capabilities. She had a beam
of 153 ft (47 m) against overall length of only 259 ft (79 m). An extreme example of tumblehome
architecture, she sported a conventionally shaped superstructure
mounted on a wide, flat-bottomed, turbot
-shaped submerged hull
or pontoon
.
Construction of the Livadia, "a gigantic life-size experiment" and a prototype for next-generation battleship
s, was supervised by William Pearce
. Bruno Tideman and Edward James Reed
acted as consultants, William Leiper
and William De Morgan
designed luxurious interiors. The Livadia turned out a surprisingly maneuverable and stable ship with a respectable maximum speed of 15.7 knots and her efficiency was comparable to conventional ships. Her performance at sea trials surprised most naval architects and was attributed to the favorable placement of the propellers.
The maiden voyage
of the Livadia revealed that her wide flat bottom was highly prone to damage by wave slamming
. She spent her brief career as a yacht in the docks and was used for her intended purpose only once, carrying Grand Dukes Constantine
and Mikhail across the Black Sea. Alexander III
had no interest in resurrecting an inherently flawed ship, and in August 1881 Livadia was moored in Nikolaev
and then hulked
and stripped of her former luxuries. Her engines were removed and reused on the Russian cruiser
s. The rusty hulk saw some use during World War I
and was finally decommissioned in 1926.
displacing 1965 tons, 81 meters long and 10.9 meters wide (excluding wheel housings). The yacht was stationed in Crimea
and tended to the Romanovs from the summer of 1873. After the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 she was converted into an auxiliary cruiser. She sank a Turkish schooner
, survived the perils of the war but on the night of October 21–22, 1878 ran aground near Cape Tarkhan-Kut in western Crimea. Salvage attempts failed, and 47 days later the Livadia was destroyed by a violent storm. After the sinking, the Russian Department of the Navy proposed building a similar conventional yacht with improved speed and endurance. Vice Admiral
Andrey Popov
, the influential chairman of the Naval Technical Commission (MTK), objected and proposed a different concept based on his circular ships
.
Naval architects of the 1860s tended to increase the beam and reduce the length of their armored ships. This change of the proportions maximized the internal volume protected by the same amount of side armor. It was heralded by Sir Edward James Reed
and taken to its extreme by Popov. Popov's coastal battleships Novgorod
and Kiev were perfectly circular in plan. The design attempted to circumvent the limitations of the Treaty of Paris
, although construction of the Novgorod and the Kiev began when the treaty had been effectively voided by the outcome of the Franco-Prussian War
. Popov wrote that a circular shape results in minimal weight of armor belt for a given displacement. It also minimized the draft of the battleships, which was critical for their intended deployment in the estuary
of the Dnieper and the Kerch Strait. Their seagoing capacities, on the contrary, were deemed unimportant. The Novgorod and the Kiev were commissioned in 1873 and 1875. The enormous drag
of their wide hulls made their engines ineffective and they could make only 8 knots. Their steering was satisfactory against the stream, and entirely unmanageable downstream. Their rudders were ineffective while their outer propellers disturbed the steering yet had no influence on the speed (and were soon removed). And, finally, these ships were too wide to fit into any existing drydock.
hull and sustainable speed of 14 knots. Popov recruited Erast Gulyaev
to produce initial drawings. The main, submerged hull of the new Livadia was 71.63 meters long and 46.64 meters wide. It was compared in shape to a pancake
, a turbot
, a turtle
or even a pair of soup plates. The superstructure
perched on the hull was only 33.53 meters wide, and had a clipper bow for an overall length of 79.25 meters. Gulyaev explained that "as the Livadia had to be a yacht, it was decided to make all her qualities subordinate to the utmost safety of navigation, and to the utmost comfort depending on the possible limitation of rolling motion at sea, and on the provision of spacious apartments with a luxurious amount of light and air."
The submerged hull was split into forty watertight compartments. Four housed the steam engines, placed forward, the boilers, electrical systems and store room. The rest were allocated to coal storage. A belt of forty smaller compartments wrapped around the hull, forming a rigid structural frame. Popov sent the drawings to the Dutch naval architect Bruno Tideman, who ran a series of tests of a paraffin
model in a ship model basin
and concluded that the design was feasible. According to Tideman, the ship could reach 14 knots with 8,500 indicated horsepowers, below Popov's earlier estimate of at least 10 thousand horsepower (the first Livadia could make 13 knots on mere 460 horsepower). Tideman insisted that the contract must be awarded to a first-rate firm and that the plans be approved by him.
In the summer of 1879 the drawings were sent to Sir William Pearce
of John Elder & Co. Pearce agreed to build it, and in August Tsar Alexander II
gave his assent. Pearce and the head of the Baltic Shipyard
Mikhail Casi, representing Alexander II, signed the contract on September 5, 1879. Pearce agreed to complete the job by July 1, 1880. The deal excluded interior finishes, to be completed in Russia. Unusually for the period, Pearce agreed to guarantee the speed of an experimental craft. According to the contract, the full price was payable only if the ship attained 15 knots. Under-performance was punishable by hefty liquidated damages
, and the Russians reserved the right for a full money back guarantee
if the ship failed to make 14 knots. They agreed to pay generous premiums if speed and engine power exceeded design targets of 15 knots and 12,000 indicated horsepowers. Pearce was instructed to build his own state-of-the-art steam engine
s, with no cap on maximum power output. The Russians subscribed to supply the complete electrical system, including arc lighting
by Yablochkov candle
s. The British press discussed the unusual project and concluded it was a test bed for future military ships and their powerplants in particular.
steel framing and 11 millimeters thick sheet iron. In November 1879, when the double bottom was 2/3 complete (but not formally laid down yet), Popov persuaded the imperial authorities to award interior finishes contact to the British, and hired Tideman to review the design again. Tideman built another 1:10 scale model, ran another series of tests and recommended changes to the powerplant and propeller arrangement that caused a significant extension of the contract. The Livadia had a double, perfectly flat bottom and only 7 ft (2.1 m) of draft, excluding the propellers. Their blades projected 9 feet below the hull. Tideman found what he claimed was near-perfect propeller configuration: all three screws had the same diameter but varied in blade pitch
, which in practice required running the engines at different revolutions per minute
.
The Livadia was launched on June 7, 1880 to the joy of ten thousand spectators and visitors which included Grand Duke Alexey
, the future General Admiral
of the Imperial Navy. She was christened by the Duchess of Hamilton. The visitors were impressed by the size and luxury of the ship's interiors which had been designed by William Leiper
and William De Morgan
and mostly completed before the launch. The decorators had used Louis XIV style
for the reception rooms, "Crimean-Tartar
style" for the drawing rooms and "the simple kind of modern English style" for the private rooms. The total volume of the royal apartments reached 3,950 cubic meters, 6.7 times more than on the first Livadia. Reporters hailed the technological novelties of the Livadia: she had, in total, 23 steam engines for different jobs including powered steering. The on-board water supply system had backup accumulators that maintained pressure even when steam pumps were not at work. The show on River Clyde
inspired Algernon Charles Swinburne
's unforgiving poem which ended with a prophecy
:
The engines and coal-fired boiler
s were installed in August. Pearce used steel
for the powerplant and manganese bronze
for the propellers and claimed that his engines were the world's most powerful for their weight. Back in Russia, the dreaded terrorists were hunting down Alexander II, and the British press rumored that the Livadia "was about to be blown by the Nihilists
' infernal machines". According to The Herald
of Glasgow, Russian authorities notified Glasgow police of a plot to place nitroglycerin time bomb
s into the ship's coal bunkers. The coal was unloaded, the divers examined the bottom of the ship and found no trace of the bomb or the three alleged terrorists. The Livadia did suffer an explosion - her boilers ruptured during cold pressure tests
. The accident was traced back to hot bending
of the Livadias boiler plates. It became a textbook example of unacceptable practice and instilled "a very justifiable dread of bending such plates while hot" into contemporary boilermakers. Despite this setback, the Livadia was completely fitted out in three months.
On September 24, 1880 Pearce personally steered the Livadia from Govan to Greenock
and then into the Firth of Clyde
, reaching 12 knots. Tideman, present at the trials, wrote that the ship steered "like a yawl
." Next day, the Livadia ran her first, unofficial, speed trial
and made 15 knots. On September 26 the Livadia performed six hour long official trials presided by Russian Admiral Ivan Likhachev. She reached 14.88 knots with the engines running at 10,200 horsepowers. This time Tideman recorded somewhat wider than expected turn radius under full power, but deemed it unimportant: the Livadia could still turn on a dime by disengaging one of the side propellers. On September 27 the Livadia reached her top recorded speed of 15.725 knots at 12.354 horsepower. Reports by Gulyaev and Reed compared Livadia to contemporary HMS Penelope
, HMS Orion
and HMS Iris
which had similar displacements and engine power, and concluded that her efficiency was on par with conventional ships.
On September 30 the Russian crew of 24 officers and 321 enlisted men boarded the ship, raised the flag of Saint Andrew
and began preparations for a homeward voyage. Their captain, Ippolit Vogak
, had earlier commanded Popov's Novgorod and Petr Veliky. Pearce completed his job and was rewarded with 414,000 roubles premium in addition to 2,700,000 roubles base contract price.
and William Houston Stewart
on board. She safely reached Brest
on October 7, where she picked up General Admiral
of the Imperial Navy Grand Duke Constantine
. On October 8 the Livadia sailed into the Bay of Biscay
and was soon caught in a violent storm. According to Reed, sailing straight into the storm to test the ship was Constantine's idea and that no Russian dared to argue. Waves of six to seven meters failed to upset the Livadia: transverse roll did not exceed 3.5 degrees, longitudinal pitch was within 5.5 degrees. Stewart praised the comfort of the Livadia: "I never was in so comfortable a ship at sea in a gale of wind ... the absence of rolling, the easiness of motion, the great comfort on board, and the handiness of steering, were such as I have never seen before in any other ship under similar circumstances of weather and sea".
However, the crew was alarmed by the thunder-like sound of the waves slamming against her flat bottom. Reed and Vogak wrote that at times it sounded as if the ship had hit a hard rock. Around 10 a.m. of the next day the hull cracked, the space between inner and outer bottoms was flooded, and Vogak rushed his ship to a safe anchorage in Ferrol. The divers discovered a five-meter-long dent and numerous cracks in the fore segment of the hull which were ultimately blamed on waves. Popov concurred and admitted his failure "to foresee the effects of shallow draft". He wrote that the damage had dual mechanism: first, when the flat pontoon pitched above the waves, gravity subjected it to an enormous stress, bending the whole structure down. Next, as it plummeted down, the flat bottom hit water head-on, rupturing the rivets and tearing off the crossbeams. Reed noted that the radial framing pattern chosen by the designers resulted in a strong center section and inadequately weak extremities, and that any experienced shipbuilder should have discovered this weakness in advance.
The Livadia could be quickly repaired in a drydock, but none of world's docks was wide enough for her. The new drydock in Nikolaev
, designed by Clark Stanfield specifically for the battleship Novgorod
and the other popovkas, had not yet been expanded to fit the Livadia. Moored in Ferrol, Spain, for seven months, she became an easy prey for the journalists. The New York Times
ridiculed the Livadia, her designers and her crowned patron: instead of blowing up the Livadia, the "nihilists" designed her, for it was hardly possible to conceive a worse ship. According to the anonymous satirist
she was "a yacht on board of which seasickness would be wholly unnecessary", "a Nihilist device that no Nihilist would dream of destroying." Instead of hunting terrorists, "the English and Russian Police should seize the designer of the Livadia and hang him on the spot." In November the newspaper changed its attitude, this time praising the Livadia for her stability on the high seas; the speed attained by "an enormous iron turtle
" impressed the reporter who suggested that the Livadia "may possibly lead to considerable changes in the art of ship-building."
According to the New York Times, on December 10 the Russians dispatched 83 men to assist repairs on the Livadia while still entertaining plans to build a 12,000-ton Livadia-style armed ironclad. Repairs proceeded slowly, and the Livadia left Ferrol only on . The Livadia, captained by Vice Admiral Ivan Shestakov
, proceeded with utmost caution, evading rough waves at all costs. She passed the Bosphorus on . and reached Sebastopol
on the next day. She made 3,890 miles in 381 hours, consuming more than 2,900 tons of coal. Shestakov reported easy steering, perfect stability and good build quality of the Livadia but advised against using her as a royal yacht until further tests could attest to her safety for Black Sea operations.
was shaken by the murder of Alexander II. His successor, Alexander III
, was facing continuing terrorist threat, civil unrest, pogroms of the Jews
and other problems of far greater importance than Popov's yacht. Popov fell out of favor: Alexander III had no faith in old Navy brass and delegated naval matters to his younger brother Grand Duke Alexey
. He publicly chided Popov's extravagant and wasteful experiments. The indifference of the tsar and the rise of Alexey doomed the Livadia.
On the Livadia sailed for her first and last voyage across the Black Sea. She raised the ensign
of the Commander of the Black Sea Fleet
, picked up Grand Dukes Constantine
and Mikhail in Yalta
and carried them to Batumi
and back. The sea was choppy, the Romanovs were upset by waves slamming against the bottom and shaking the superstructure.
Later in June the Livadia was raised in dry dock. The inspection found her structure to be inadequately weak and recommended proper reinforcement of the hull. The Department of the Navy agreed and then issued a countermanding order subjecting the Livadia to speed trials before any major repairs. In August 1881 she made 136 speed runs and barely reached 14.46 knots and 9,837 horsepowers. The failure to make 15 knots sparked allegations of fraud against Popov and his Scottish contractor, but was ultimately explained by the incompetence of the crew and low quality of local coals. the Livadia was sent to an anchorage in Nikolaev where she was stripped of all the luxuries. Her retirement had not been formally announced, and Russian press cautiously called her "the former yacht".
Popov's attempts to save the Livadia were cut short by Shestakov's report that the tsar was determined to get rid of the Livadia. Alexander agreed to convert her into a floating jail, ruling out any seagoing in the future. Popov was again accused of fraud and embezzlement and struggled with imperial prosecution for four years.
In April 1883 the Livadia was renamed Opyt and left to rot while the Navy discussed its fate. Plans to convert her into a troopship
were discarded, and by the end of the decade her engines were removed and installed on Minin
, General Admiral
and Duke of Edinburgh
. The hulk
was used as a floating barrack and a warehouse. In 1913 Opyt was recommissioned for port duties; she was finally struck off the Soviet Navy
register in 1926. According to Andrienko, she was still afloat in late 1930s.
Experience of the Livadia attracted shipbuilders' interest in the beginning of the 20th century, when the risk of torpedo
attack forced the navies to reconsider ship protection technique and employ submerged anti-torpedo bulge
s.
Royal Yacht
A royal yacht is a ship used by a monarch or a royal family. If the monarch is an emperor the proper term is imperial yacht. Most of them are financed by the government of the country of which the monarch is head...
of the House of Romanov built in 1879–1880 to replace a yacht of the same name
Livadia (yacht, 1873)
Livadia was an imperial yacht of the House of Romanov built in 1869–1873 by Leopold Schwede in Nikolaev. She served on the Black Sea. The Livadia was the only Russian imperial yacht that has seen active combat service during the Russo-Turkish war of 1877–1878...
that had sunk off the coast of Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
in 1878. The new Livadia, intended for service on the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
, was a radically novel ship conceived by Vice Admiral
Vice Admiral
Vice admiral is a senior naval rank of a three-star flag officer, which is equivalent to lieutenant general in the other uniformed services. A vice admiral is typically senior to a rear admiral and junior to an admiral...
Andrey Popov
Andrei Alexandrovich Popov
Andrei Alexandrovich Popov was an officer of the Imperial Russian Navy, who saw action during the Crimean War, and became a noted naval designer....
, designed by naval architect
Naval architecture
Naval architecture is an engineering discipline dealing with the design, construction, maintenance and operation of marine vessels and structures. Naval architecture involves basic and applied research, design, development, design evaluation and calculations during all stages of the life of a...
Erast Gulyaev
Erast Gulyaev
Erast Evgenievich Gulyaev was a Russian naval architect, who designed the Russian imperial yacht Livadia among other notable ships.- References :...
and built by John Elder & Co.
Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company
The Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Limited was a British shipbuilding company in the Govan area on the Clyde in Glasgow. Fairfields, as it is often known, was a major warship builder, turning out many vessels for the Royal Navy and other navies through the First World War and the...
of Govan
Govan
Govan is a district and former burgh now part of southwest City of Glasgow, Scotland. It is situated west of Glasgow city centre, on the south bank of the River Clyde, opposite the mouth of the River Kelvin and the district of Partick....
on Clyde
River Clyde
The River Clyde is a major river in Scotland. It is the ninth longest river in the United Kingdom, and the third longest in Scotland. Flowing through the major city of Glasgow, it was an important river for shipbuilding and trade in the British Empire....
. The Livadia continued Popov's line of circular ships
Russian battleship Novgorod
The Novgorod was an Imperial Russian warship. It was one of the most unusual warships ever constructed, and still survives in popular naval myth, often described as the "ugliest warship ever built". Together with her near-sister ship Rear Admiral Popov, they were affectionately called "popovkas",...
although this time Popov sacrificed geometrical perfection for seagoing capabilities. She had a beam
Beam (nautical)
The beam of a ship is its width at the widest point. Generally speaking, the wider the beam of a ship , the more initial stability it has, at expense of reserve stability in the event of a capsize, where more energy is required to right the vessel from its inverted position...
of 153 ft (47 m) against overall length of only 259 ft (79 m). An extreme example of tumblehome
Tumblehome
In ship designing, the tumblehome is the narrowing of a ship's hull with greater distance above the water-line. Expressed more technically, it is present when the beam at the uppermost deck is less than the maximum beam of the vessel....
architecture, she sported a conventionally shaped superstructure
Superstructure
A superstructure is an upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline. This term is applied to various kinds of physical structures such as buildings, bridges, or ships...
mounted on a wide, flat-bottomed, turbot
Turbot
The turbot is a species of flatfish in the family Scophthalmidae. It is native to marine or brackish waters of the North Atlantic, Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.-Etymology:...
-shaped submerged hull
Hull (watercraft)
A hull is the watertight body of a ship or boat. Above the hull is the superstructure and/or deckhouse, where present. The line where the hull meets the water surface is called the waterline.The structure of the hull varies depending on the vessel type...
or pontoon
Pontoon (boat)
A pontoon is a flotation device with buoyancy sufficient to float itself as well as a heavy load. A pontoon boat is a flattish boat that relies on pontoons to float. Pontoons may be used on boats, rafts, barges, docks, floatplanes or seaplanes. Pontoons may support a platform, creating a raft. A...
.
Construction of the Livadia, "a gigantic life-size experiment" and a prototype for next-generation battleship
Battleship
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...
s, was supervised by William Pearce
Sir William Pearce, 1st Baronet
Sir William Pearce, 1st Baronet was a British shipbuilder, under whose management the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Govan on the River Clyde became the leading shipbuilding company in the world...
. Bruno Tideman and Edward James Reed
Edward James Reed
Sir Edward James Reed , KCB, FRS, was a British naval architect, author, politician, and railroad magnate. He was the Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy from 1863 until 1870...
acted as consultants, William Leiper
William Leiper
William Leiper FRIBA RSA was a British architect notable particularly for his work in the west central Lowlands of Scotland.-Career:...
and William De Morgan
William De Morgan
William Frend De Morgan was an English potter and tile designer. A lifelong friend of William Morris, he designed tiles, stained glass and furniture for Morris & Co. from 1863 to 1872. His tiles are often based on medieval designs or Persian patterns, and he experimented with innovative glazes and...
designed luxurious interiors. The Livadia turned out a surprisingly maneuverable and stable ship with a respectable maximum speed of 15.7 knots and her efficiency was comparable to conventional ships. Her performance at sea trials surprised most naval architects and was attributed to the favorable placement of the propellers.
The maiden voyage
Maiden voyage
The maiden voyage of a ship, aircraft or other craft is the first journey made by the craft after shakedown. A number of traditions and superstitions are associated with it....
of the Livadia revealed that her wide flat bottom was highly prone to damage by wave slamming
Slamming
Slamming is the impact of the bottom structure of a ship onto the sea surface. It is mainly observed while sailing in waves, when the bow raises from the water and subsequently impacts on it. Slamming induces extremely high loads to ship structures and is taken under consideration when designing...
. She spent her brief career as a yacht in the docks and was used for her intended purpose only once, carrying Grand Dukes Constantine
Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia
Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia was the second son of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia.During the reign of his brother Alexander II, Konstantin was an admiral of the Russian fleet and reformed the Russian Navy. He was also an instrumental figure in the emancipation of the serfs...
and Mikhail across the Black Sea. Alexander III
Alexander III of Russia
Alexander Alexandrovich Romanov , historically remembered as Alexander III or Alexander the Peacemaker reigned as Emperor of Russia from until his death on .-Disposition:...
had no interest in resurrecting an inherently flawed ship, and in August 1881 Livadia was moored in Nikolaev
Mykolaiv
Mykolaiv , also known as Nikolayev , is a city in southern Ukraine, administrative center of the Mykolaiv Oblast. Mykolaiv is the main ship building center of the Black Sea, and, arguably, the whole Eastern Europe.-Name of city:...
and then hulked
Hulk (ship)
A hulk is a ship that is afloat, but incapable of going to sea. Although sometimes used to describe a ship that has been launched but not completed, the term most often refers to an old ship that has had its rigging or internal equipment removed, retaining only its flotational qualities...
and stripped of her former luxuries. Her engines were removed and reused on the Russian cruiser
Cruiser
A cruiser is a type of warship. The term has been in use for several hundreds of years, and has had different meanings throughout this period...
s. The rusty hulk saw some use during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and was finally decommissioned in 1926.
Background
The first Livadia was built in 1869–1873 by Leopold Schwede. She was a wooden seagoing paddle steamerPaddle steamer
A paddle steamer is a steamship or riverboat, powered by a steam engine, using paddle wheels to propel it through the water. In antiquity, Paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were wheelers driven by animals or humans...
displacing 1965 tons, 81 meters long and 10.9 meters wide (excluding wheel housings). The yacht was stationed in Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
and tended to the Romanovs from the summer of 1873. After the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 she was converted into an auxiliary cruiser. She sank a Turkish schooner
Schooner
A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....
, survived the perils of the war but on the night of October 21–22, 1878 ran aground near Cape Tarkhan-Kut in western Crimea. Salvage attempts failed, and 47 days later the Livadia was destroyed by a violent storm. After the sinking, the Russian Department of the Navy proposed building a similar conventional yacht with improved speed and endurance. Vice Admiral
Vice Admiral
Vice admiral is a senior naval rank of a three-star flag officer, which is equivalent to lieutenant general in the other uniformed services. A vice admiral is typically senior to a rear admiral and junior to an admiral...
Andrey Popov
Andrei Alexandrovich Popov
Andrei Alexandrovich Popov was an officer of the Imperial Russian Navy, who saw action during the Crimean War, and became a noted naval designer....
, the influential chairman of the Naval Technical Commission (MTK), objected and proposed a different concept based on his circular ships
Russian battleship Novgorod
The Novgorod was an Imperial Russian warship. It was one of the most unusual warships ever constructed, and still survives in popular naval myth, often described as the "ugliest warship ever built". Together with her near-sister ship Rear Admiral Popov, they were affectionately called "popovkas",...
.
Naval architects of the 1860s tended to increase the beam and reduce the length of their armored ships. This change of the proportions maximized the internal volume protected by the same amount of side armor. It was heralded by Sir Edward James Reed
Edward James Reed
Sir Edward James Reed , KCB, FRS, was a British naval architect, author, politician, and railroad magnate. He was the Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy from 1863 until 1870...
and taken to its extreme by Popov. Popov's coastal battleships Novgorod
Russian battleship Novgorod
The Novgorod was an Imperial Russian warship. It was one of the most unusual warships ever constructed, and still survives in popular naval myth, often described as the "ugliest warship ever built". Together with her near-sister ship Rear Admiral Popov, they were affectionately called "popovkas",...
and Kiev were perfectly circular in plan. The design attempted to circumvent the limitations of the Treaty of Paris
Treaty of Paris (1856)
The Treaty of Paris of 1856 settled the Crimean War between Russia and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, Second French Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The treaty, signed on March 30, 1856 at the Congress of Paris, made the Black Sea neutral territory, closing it to all...
, although construction of the Novgorod and the Kiev began when the treaty had been effectively voided by the outcome of the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
. Popov wrote that a circular shape results in minimal weight of armor belt for a given displacement. It also minimized the draft of the battleships, which was critical for their intended deployment in the estuary
Estuary
An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....
of the Dnieper and the Kerch Strait. Their seagoing capacities, on the contrary, were deemed unimportant. The Novgorod and the Kiev were commissioned in 1873 and 1875. The enormous drag
Drag (physics)
In fluid dynamics, drag refers to forces which act on a solid object in the direction of the relative fluid flow velocity...
of their wide hulls made their engines ineffective and they could make only 8 knots. Their steering was satisfactory against the stream, and entirely unmanageable downstream. Their rudders were ineffective while their outer propellers disturbed the steering yet had no influence on the speed (and were soon removed). And, finally, these ships were too wide to fit into any existing drydock.
Design
According to Popov, the new imperial yacht should have had a wide, flat-bottomed tumblehomeTumblehome
In ship designing, the tumblehome is the narrowing of a ship's hull with greater distance above the water-line. Expressed more technically, it is present when the beam at the uppermost deck is less than the maximum beam of the vessel....
hull and sustainable speed of 14 knots. Popov recruited Erast Gulyaev
Erast Gulyaev
Erast Evgenievich Gulyaev was a Russian naval architect, who designed the Russian imperial yacht Livadia among other notable ships.- References :...
to produce initial drawings. The main, submerged hull of the new Livadia was 71.63 meters long and 46.64 meters wide. It was compared in shape to a pancake
Pancake
A pancake is a thin, flat, round cake prepared from a batter, and cooked on a hot griddle or frying pan. Most pancakes are quick breads; some use a yeast-raised or fermented batter. Most pancakes are cooked one side on a griddle and flipped partway through to cook the other side...
, a turbot
Turbot
The turbot is a species of flatfish in the family Scophthalmidae. It is native to marine or brackish waters of the North Atlantic, Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.-Etymology:...
, a turtle
Turtle
Turtles are reptiles of the order Testudines , characterised by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs that acts as a shield...
or even a pair of soup plates. The superstructure
Superstructure
A superstructure is an upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline. This term is applied to various kinds of physical structures such as buildings, bridges, or ships...
perched on the hull was only 33.53 meters wide, and had a clipper bow for an overall length of 79.25 meters. Gulyaev explained that "as the Livadia had to be a yacht, it was decided to make all her qualities subordinate to the utmost safety of navigation, and to the utmost comfort depending on the possible limitation of rolling motion at sea, and on the provision of spacious apartments with a luxurious amount of light and air."
The submerged hull was split into forty watertight compartments. Four housed the steam engines, placed forward, the boilers, electrical systems and store room. The rest were allocated to coal storage. A belt of forty smaller compartments wrapped around the hull, forming a rigid structural frame. Popov sent the drawings to the Dutch naval architect Bruno Tideman, who ran a series of tests of a paraffin
Paraffin
In chemistry, paraffin is a term that can be used synonymously with "alkane", indicating hydrocarbons with the general formula CnH2n+2. Paraffin wax refers to a mixture of alkanes that falls within the 20 ≤ n ≤ 40 range; they are found in the solid state at room temperature and begin to enter the...
model in a ship model basin
Ship model basin
A ship model basin may be defined as one of two separate yet related entities, namely:* a physical basin or tank used to carry out hydrodynamic tests with ship models, for the purpose of designing a new ship, or refining the design of a ship to improve the ship's performance at sea;* the...
and concluded that the design was feasible. According to Tideman, the ship could reach 14 knots with 8,500 indicated horsepowers, below Popov's earlier estimate of at least 10 thousand horsepower (the first Livadia could make 13 knots on mere 460 horsepower). Tideman insisted that the contract must be awarded to a first-rate firm and that the plans be approved by him.
In the summer of 1879 the drawings were sent to Sir William Pearce
Sir William Pearce, 1st Baronet
Sir William Pearce, 1st Baronet was a British shipbuilder, under whose management the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Govan on the River Clyde became the leading shipbuilding company in the world...
of John Elder & Co. Pearce agreed to build it, and in August Tsar Alexander II
Alexander II of Russia
Alexander II , also known as Alexander the Liberator was the Emperor of the Russian Empire from 3 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881...
gave his assent. Pearce and the head of the Baltic Shipyard
Baltic Shipyard
The Baltic Shipyard is one of the oldest shipyards in Russia. It is located in Saint Petersburg in the south-western part of the Vasilievsky Island. It is one of the three shipyards active in Saint Petersburg...
Mikhail Casi, representing Alexander II, signed the contract on September 5, 1879. Pearce agreed to complete the job by July 1, 1880. The deal excluded interior finishes, to be completed in Russia. Unusually for the period, Pearce agreed to guarantee the speed of an experimental craft. According to the contract, the full price was payable only if the ship attained 15 knots. Under-performance was punishable by hefty liquidated damages
Liquidated damages
Liquidated damages are damages whose amount the parties designate during the formation of a contract for the injured party to collect as compensation upon a specific breach ....
, and the Russians reserved the right for a full money back guarantee
Money back guarantee
A money-back guarantee is essentially a simple guarantee that, if a buyer is not satisfied with a product or service, a refund will be made....
if the ship failed to make 14 knots. They agreed to pay generous premiums if speed and engine power exceeded design targets of 15 knots and 12,000 indicated horsepowers. Pearce was instructed to build his own state-of-the-art steam engine
Steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...
s, with no cap on maximum power output. The Russians subscribed to supply the complete electrical system, including arc lighting
Arc lamp
"Arc lamp" or "arc light" is the general term for a class of lamps that produce light by an electric arc . The lamp consists of two electrodes, first made from carbon but typically made today of tungsten, which are separated by a gas...
by Yablochkov candle
Yablochkov candle
A Yablochkov candle is a type of electric carbon arc lamp, invented in 1876 by Pavel Yablochkov.-Design:A Yablochkov candle consists of a sandwich of two long carbon blocks, approximately 6 by 12 millimetres in cross-section, separated by a block of inert material such as plaster of paris or kaolin...
s. The British press discussed the unusual project and concluded it was a test bed for future military ships and their powerplants in particular.
Construction and trials
The pontoon hull was built of soft SiemensSiemens
Siemens may refer toSiemens, a German family name carried by generations of telecommunications industrialists, including:* Werner von Siemens , inventor, founder of Siemens AG...
steel framing and 11 millimeters thick sheet iron. In November 1879, when the double bottom was 2/3 complete (but not formally laid down yet), Popov persuaded the imperial authorities to award interior finishes contact to the British, and hired Tideman to review the design again. Tideman built another 1:10 scale model, ran another series of tests and recommended changes to the powerplant and propeller arrangement that caused a significant extension of the contract. The Livadia had a double, perfectly flat bottom and only 7 ft (2.1 m) of draft, excluding the propellers. Their blades projected 9 feet below the hull. Tideman found what he claimed was near-perfect propeller configuration: all three screws had the same diameter but varied in blade pitch
Blade pitch
Blade pitch or simply pitch refers to turning the angle of attack of the blades of a propeller or helicopter rotor into or out of the wind to control the production or absorption of power. Wind turbines use this to adjust the rotation speed and the generated power...
, which in practice required running the engines at different revolutions per minute
Revolutions per minute
Revolutions per minute is a measure of the frequency of a rotation. It annotates the number of full rotations completed in one minute around a fixed axis...
.
The Livadia was launched on June 7, 1880 to the joy of ten thousand spectators and visitors which included Grand Duke Alexey
Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia
Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia was the sixth child and the fourth son of Alexander II of Russia and his first wife Maria Alexandrovna . Destined to a naval career, Alexei Alexandrovich started his military training at the age of 7...
, the future General Admiral
General Admiral
General admiral was a Danish, Dutch, German, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish naval rank. Its historic origin is a title high military or naval dignitaries of early modern Europe sometimes held, for example the commander-in-chief of the Dutch Republic's navy .-Third Reich:In the German...
of the Imperial Navy. She was christened by the Duchess of Hamilton. The visitors were impressed by the size and luxury of the ship's interiors which had been designed by William Leiper
William Leiper
William Leiper FRIBA RSA was a British architect notable particularly for his work in the west central Lowlands of Scotland.-Career:...
and William De Morgan
William De Morgan
William Frend De Morgan was an English potter and tile designer. A lifelong friend of William Morris, he designed tiles, stained glass and furniture for Morris & Co. from 1863 to 1872. His tiles are often based on medieval designs or Persian patterns, and he experimented with innovative glazes and...
and mostly completed before the launch. The decorators had used Louis XIV style
French Baroque and Classicism
17th-century French art is generally referred to as Baroque, but from the mid to late 17th century, French art is more often referred to as Neo-classicism, which implies an adherence to certain rules of proportion and sobriety uncharacteristic of the Baroque as it was practiced in Southern and...
for the reception rooms, "Crimean-Tartar
Crimean Tatars
Crimean Tatars or Crimeans are a Turkic ethnic group that originally resided in Crimea. They speak the Crimean Tatar language...
style" for the drawing rooms and "the simple kind of modern English style" for the private rooms. The total volume of the royal apartments reached 3,950 cubic meters, 6.7 times more than on the first Livadia. Reporters hailed the technological novelties of the Livadia: she had, in total, 23 steam engines for different jobs including powered steering. The on-board water supply system had backup accumulators that maintained pressure even when steam pumps were not at work. The show on River Clyde
River Clyde
The River Clyde is a major river in Scotland. It is the ninth longest river in the United Kingdom, and the third longest in Scotland. Flowing through the major city of Glasgow, it was an important river for shipbuilding and trade in the British Empire....
inspired Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He invented the roundel form, wrote several novels, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica...
's unforgiving poem which ended with a prophecy
Prophecy
Prophecy is a process in which one or more messages that have been communicated to a prophet are then communicated to others. Such messages typically involve divine inspiration, interpretation, or revelation of conditioned events to come as well as testimonies or repeated revelations that the...
:
And fear at hand for pilot over sea,
With death for compass and despair for star
And the white foam a shroud for the White Czar.
The engines and coal-fired boiler
Boiler
A boiler is a closed vessel in which water or other fluid is heated. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications.-Materials:...
s were installed in August. Pearce used steel
Steel
Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...
for the powerplant and manganese bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
for the propellers and claimed that his engines were the world's most powerful for their weight. Back in Russia, the dreaded terrorists were hunting down Alexander II, and the British press rumored that the Livadia "was about to be blown by the Nihilists
Nihilist movement
The Nihilist movement was a Russian movement in the 1860s which rejected all authorities. It is derived from the Latin word "nihil", which means "nothing"...
' infernal machines". According to The Herald
The Herald (Glasgow)
The Herald is a broadsheet newspaper published Monday to Saturday in Glasgow, and available throughout Scotland. As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 47,226, giving it a lead over Scotland's other 'quality' national daily, The Scotsman, published in Edinburgh.The 1889 to 1906 editions...
of Glasgow, Russian authorities notified Glasgow police of a plot to place nitroglycerin time bomb
Time bomb
A time bomb is a bomb whose detonation is triggered by a timer. The use time bombs has been for various purposes ranging from insurance fraud to warfare to assassination; however, the most common use has been for politically-motivated terrorism.-Construction:The explosive charge is the main...
s into the ship's coal bunkers. The coal was unloaded, the divers examined the bottom of the ship and found no trace of the bomb or the three alleged terrorists. The Livadia did suffer an explosion - her boilers ruptured during cold pressure tests
Hydrostatic test
A hydrostatic test is a way in which leaks can be found in pressure vessels such as pipelines and plumbing. The test involves placing water, which is often dyed for visibility, in the pipe or vessel at the required pressure to ensure that it will not leak or be damaged. It is the most common method...
. The accident was traced back to hot bending
Bending (metalworking)
Bending is a manufacturing process that produces a V-shape, U-shape, or channel shape along a straight axis in ductile materials, most commonly sheet metal. Commonly used equipment include box and pan brakes, brake presses, and other specialized machine presses...
of the Livadias boiler plates. It became a textbook example of unacceptable practice and instilled "a very justifiable dread of bending such plates while hot" into contemporary boilermakers. Despite this setback, the Livadia was completely fitted out in three months.
On September 24, 1880 Pearce personally steered the Livadia from Govan to Greenock
Greenock
Greenock is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council area in United Kingdom, and a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland...
and then into the Firth of Clyde
Firth of Clyde
The Firth of Clyde forms a large area of coastal water, sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the Kintyre peninsula which encloses the outer firth in Argyll and Ayrshire, Scotland. The Kilbrannan Sound is a large arm of the Firth of Clyde, separating the Kintyre Peninsula from the Isle of Arran.At...
, reaching 12 knots. Tideman, present at the trials, wrote that the ship steered "like a yawl
Yawl
A yawl is a two-masted sailing craft similar to a sloop or cutter but with an additional mast located well aft of the main mast, often right on the transom, specifically aft of the rudder post. A yawl (from Dutch Jol) is a two-masted sailing craft similar to a sloop or cutter but with an...
." Next day, the Livadia ran her first, unofficial, speed trial
Sea trial
A sea trial is the testing phase of a watercraft . It is also referred to as a "shakedown cruise" by many naval personnel. It is usually the last phase of construction and takes place on open water, and can last from a few hours to many days.Sea trials are conducted to measure a vessel’s...
and made 15 knots. On September 26 the Livadia performed six hour long official trials presided by Russian Admiral Ivan Likhachev. She reached 14.88 knots with the engines running at 10,200 horsepowers. This time Tideman recorded somewhat wider than expected turn radius under full power, but deemed it unimportant: the Livadia could still turn on a dime by disengaging one of the side propellers. On September 27 the Livadia reached her top recorded speed of 15.725 knots at 12.354 horsepower. Reports by Gulyaev and Reed compared Livadia to contemporary HMS Penelope
HMS Penelope (1867)
HMS Penelope was the last small ironclad to be commissioned in the Royal Navy.Because of the absence through illness of the Chief Constructor, Sir Edward Reed, the design of this ship was entrusted to his brother-in-law and the future Chief Constructor, Nathaniel Barnaby.-Design:She was...
, HMS Orion
HMS Orion (1879)
HMS Orion was a of the Victorian Royal Navy. Originally constructed for the Ottoman Empire, and called Bourdjou-Zaffer, she was purchased by the British Government before completion....
and HMS Iris
HMS Iris (1877)
HMS Iris was an Iris Class second-class cruiser of the Royal Navy. The Iris class ships were the first all-steel ships to serve with the Royal Navy and were employed as armed dispatch vessels. She had a double bottom and her Maudslay machinery produced , slightly less than her stablemate HMS...
which had similar displacements and engine power, and concluded that her efficiency was on par with conventional ships.
On September 30 the Russian crew of 24 officers and 321 enlisted men boarded the ship, raised the flag of Saint Andrew
Imperial Russian Navy
The Imperial Russian Navy refers to the Tsarist fleets prior to the February Revolution.-First Romanovs:Under Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich, construction of the first three-masted ship, actually built within Russia, was completed in 1636. It was built in Balakhna by Danish shipbuilders from Holstein...
and began preparations for a homeward voyage. Their captain, Ippolit Vogak
Ippolit Vogak
Ippolit Konstantinovich Vogak was an Imperial Russian Navy admiral.* captain of the battleship Petr Velikiy in 1874-1880.* promoted to the rank of rear-admiral in 1883....
, had earlier commanded Popov's Novgorod and Petr Veliky. Pearce completed his job and was rewarded with 414,000 roubles premium in addition to 2,700,000 roubles base contract price.
Maiden voyage
The Livadia left Greenock on October 3 with Popov, Tideman, Edward James ReedEdward James Reed
Sir Edward James Reed , KCB, FRS, was a British naval architect, author, politician, and railroad magnate. He was the Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy from 1863 until 1870...
and William Houston Stewart
William Houston Stewart
Admiral Sir William Houston Stewart GCB was a British naval officer who was Controller of the Royal Navy from 1872 to 1881.-Personal life:...
on board. She safely reached Brest
Brest, France
Brest is a city in the Finistère department in Brittany in northwestern France. Located in a sheltered position not far from the western tip of the Breton peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second French military port after Toulon...
on October 7, where she picked up General Admiral
General Admiral
General admiral was a Danish, Dutch, German, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish naval rank. Its historic origin is a title high military or naval dignitaries of early modern Europe sometimes held, for example the commander-in-chief of the Dutch Republic's navy .-Third Reich:In the German...
of the Imperial Navy Grand Duke Constantine
Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia
Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia was the second son of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia.During the reign of his brother Alexander II, Konstantin was an admiral of the Russian fleet and reformed the Russian Navy. He was also an instrumental figure in the emancipation of the serfs...
. On October 8 the Livadia sailed into the Bay of Biscay
Bay of Biscay
The Bay of Biscay is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean located south of the Celtic Sea. It lies along the western coast of France from Brest south to the Spanish border, and the northern coast of Spain west to Cape Ortegal, and is named in English after the province of Biscay, in the Spanish...
and was soon caught in a violent storm. According to Reed, sailing straight into the storm to test the ship was Constantine's idea and that no Russian dared to argue. Waves of six to seven meters failed to upset the Livadia: transverse roll did not exceed 3.5 degrees, longitudinal pitch was within 5.5 degrees. Stewart praised the comfort of the Livadia: "I never was in so comfortable a ship at sea in a gale of wind ... the absence of rolling, the easiness of motion, the great comfort on board, and the handiness of steering, were such as I have never seen before in any other ship under similar circumstances of weather and sea".
However, the crew was alarmed by the thunder-like sound of the waves slamming against her flat bottom. Reed and Vogak wrote that at times it sounded as if the ship had hit a hard rock. Around 10 a.m. of the next day the hull cracked, the space between inner and outer bottoms was flooded, and Vogak rushed his ship to a safe anchorage in Ferrol. The divers discovered a five-meter-long dent and numerous cracks in the fore segment of the hull which were ultimately blamed on waves. Popov concurred and admitted his failure "to foresee the effects of shallow draft". He wrote that the damage had dual mechanism: first, when the flat pontoon pitched above the waves, gravity subjected it to an enormous stress, bending the whole structure down. Next, as it plummeted down, the flat bottom hit water head-on, rupturing the rivets and tearing off the crossbeams. Reed noted that the radial framing pattern chosen by the designers resulted in a strong center section and inadequately weak extremities, and that any experienced shipbuilder should have discovered this weakness in advance.
The Livadia could be quickly repaired in a drydock, but none of world's docks was wide enough for her. The new drydock in Nikolaev
Mykolaiv
Mykolaiv , also known as Nikolayev , is a city in southern Ukraine, administrative center of the Mykolaiv Oblast. Mykolaiv is the main ship building center of the Black Sea, and, arguably, the whole Eastern Europe.-Name of city:...
, designed by Clark Stanfield specifically for the battleship Novgorod
Russian battleship Novgorod
The Novgorod was an Imperial Russian warship. It was one of the most unusual warships ever constructed, and still survives in popular naval myth, often described as the "ugliest warship ever built". Together with her near-sister ship Rear Admiral Popov, they were affectionately called "popovkas",...
and the other popovkas, had not yet been expanded to fit the Livadia. Moored in Ferrol, Spain, for seven months, she became an easy prey for the journalists. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
ridiculed the Livadia, her designers and her crowned patron: instead of blowing up the Livadia, the "nihilists" designed her, for it was hardly possible to conceive a worse ship. According to the anonymous satirist
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
she was "a yacht on board of which seasickness would be wholly unnecessary", "a Nihilist device that no Nihilist would dream of destroying." Instead of hunting terrorists, "the English and Russian Police should seize the designer of the Livadia and hang him on the spot." In November the newspaper changed its attitude, this time praising the Livadia for her stability on the high seas; the speed attained by "an enormous iron turtle
Turtle
Turtles are reptiles of the order Testudines , characterised by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs that acts as a shield...
" impressed the reporter who suggested that the Livadia "may possibly lead to considerable changes in the art of ship-building."
According to the New York Times, on December 10 the Russians dispatched 83 men to assist repairs on the Livadia while still entertaining plans to build a 12,000-ton Livadia-style armed ironclad. Repairs proceeded slowly, and the Livadia left Ferrol only on . The Livadia, captained by Vice Admiral Ivan Shestakov
Ivan Shestakov
-Early years:Shestakov was born in the village of Syrokorenye in Smolensk Governorate to the Russian noble family of captain-lieutenant Alexey Antonovich Shestakov and Yevdokiya Ivanovna Khrapovitskaya. After finishing his studies at the Naval Cadet Corps , he served in the Black Sea Fleet...
, proceeded with utmost caution, evading rough waves at all costs. She passed the Bosphorus on . and reached Sebastopol
Sevastopol
Sevastopol is a city on rights of administrative division of Ukraine, located on the Black Sea coast of the Crimea peninsula. It has a population of 342,451 . Sevastopol is the second largest port in Ukraine, after the Port of Odessa....
on the next day. She made 3,890 miles in 381 hours, consuming more than 2,900 tons of coal. Shestakov reported easy steering, perfect stability and good build quality of the Livadia but advised against using her as a royal yacht until further tests could attest to her safety for Black Sea operations.
Abandonment
On the Russian EmpireRussian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
was shaken by the murder of Alexander II. His successor, Alexander III
Alexander III of Russia
Alexander Alexandrovich Romanov , historically remembered as Alexander III or Alexander the Peacemaker reigned as Emperor of Russia from until his death on .-Disposition:...
, was facing continuing terrorist threat, civil unrest, pogroms of the Jews
Anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire
The term pogrom as a reference to large-scale, targeted, and repeated antisemitic rioting saw its first use in the 19th century.The first pogrom is often considered to be the 1821 Odessa pogroms after the death of the Greek Orthodox patriarch Gregory V in Constantinople, in which 14 Jews were killed...
and other problems of far greater importance than Popov's yacht. Popov fell out of favor: Alexander III had no faith in old Navy brass and delegated naval matters to his younger brother Grand Duke Alexey
Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia
Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia was the sixth child and the fourth son of Alexander II of Russia and his first wife Maria Alexandrovna . Destined to a naval career, Alexei Alexandrovich started his military training at the age of 7...
. He publicly chided Popov's extravagant and wasteful experiments. The indifference of the tsar and the rise of Alexey doomed the Livadia.
On the Livadia sailed for her first and last voyage across the Black Sea. She raised the ensign
Ensign
An ensign is a national flag when used at sea, in vexillology, or a distinguishing token, emblem, or badge, such as a symbol of office in heraldry...
of the Commander of the Black Sea Fleet
Black Sea Fleet
The Black Sea Fleet is a large operational-strategic sub-unit of the Russian Navy, operating in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea since the late 18th century. It is based in various harbors of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov....
, picked up Grand Dukes Constantine
Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia
Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia was the second son of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia.During the reign of his brother Alexander II, Konstantin was an admiral of the Russian fleet and reformed the Russian Navy. He was also an instrumental figure in the emancipation of the serfs...
and Mikhail in Yalta
Yalta
Yalta is a city in Crimea, southern Ukraine, on the north coast of the Black Sea.The city is located on the site of an ancient Greek colony, said to have been founded by Greek sailors who were looking for a safe shore on which to land. It is situated on a deep bay facing south towards the Black...
and carried them to Batumi
Batumi
Batumi is a seaside city on the Black Sea coast and capital of Adjara, an autonomous republic in southwest Georgia. Sometimes considered Georgia's second capital, with a population of 121,806 , Batumi serves as an important port and a commercial center. It is situated in a subtropical zone, rich in...
and back. The sea was choppy, the Romanovs were upset by waves slamming against the bottom and shaking the superstructure.
Later in June the Livadia was raised in dry dock. The inspection found her structure to be inadequately weak and recommended proper reinforcement of the hull. The Department of the Navy agreed and then issued a countermanding order subjecting the Livadia to speed trials before any major repairs. In August 1881 she made 136 speed runs and barely reached 14.46 knots and 9,837 horsepowers. The failure to make 15 knots sparked allegations of fraud against Popov and his Scottish contractor, but was ultimately explained by the incompetence of the crew and low quality of local coals. the Livadia was sent to an anchorage in Nikolaev where she was stripped of all the luxuries. Her retirement had not been formally announced, and Russian press cautiously called her "the former yacht".
Popov's attempts to save the Livadia were cut short by Shestakov's report that the tsar was determined to get rid of the Livadia. Alexander agreed to convert her into a floating jail, ruling out any seagoing in the future. Popov was again accused of fraud and embezzlement and struggled with imperial prosecution for four years.
In April 1883 the Livadia was renamed Opyt and left to rot while the Navy discussed its fate. Plans to convert her into a troopship
Troopship
A troopship is a ship used to carry soldiers, either in peacetime or wartime...
were discarded, and by the end of the decade her engines were removed and installed on Minin
Russian cruiser Minin
The Russian cruiser Minin was an armored cruiser built for the Imperial Russian Navy during the 1860s and 1870s....
, General Admiral
Russian cruiser General-Admiral (1873)
General-Admiral was the lead ship of the armored cruisers built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the early 1870s. She is generally considered as the first true armored cruiser.-Design and description:...
and Duke of Edinburgh
Russian cruiser Gerzog Edinburgski
The Gerzog Edinburgski was an armoured cruiser built for the Imperial Russian Navy. She was a sister ship of the Russian cruiser General-Admiral and was named after Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Edinburgh who married Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia.The ship was...
. The hulk
Hulk (ship)
A hulk is a ship that is afloat, but incapable of going to sea. Although sometimes used to describe a ship that has been launched but not completed, the term most often refers to an old ship that has had its rigging or internal equipment removed, retaining only its flotational qualities...
was used as a floating barrack and a warehouse. In 1913 Opyt was recommissioned for port duties; she was finally struck off the Soviet Navy
Soviet Navy
The Soviet Navy was the naval arm of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy would have played an instrumental role in a Warsaw Pact war with NATO, where it would have attempted to prevent naval convoys from bringing reinforcements across the Atlantic Ocean...
register in 1926. According to Andrienko, she was still afloat in late 1930s.
Experience of the Livadia attracted shipbuilders' interest in the beginning of the 20th century, when the risk of torpedo
Torpedo
The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...
attack forced the navies to reconsider ship protection technique and employ submerged anti-torpedo bulge
Anti-torpedo bulge
The anti-torpedo bulge is a form of passive defence against naval torpedoes that featured in warship construction in the period between the First and Second World Wars.-Theory and form:...
s.
Further reading
- Bram StokerBram StokerAbraham "Bram" Stoker was an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula...
's Personal Reminiscences of Henry IrvingPersonal Reminiscences of Henry IrvingPersonal Reminiscences of Henry Irving is the third book of nonfiction by Bram Stoker , published in 1906. It is a biography about the English actor Henry Irving.-Online texts:...
contains a chapter on Pearce and the Livadia. According to Stoker, the real purpose of the Livadia was to provide Alexander II a refuge from the terrorists. Delay at Ferrol, wrote Stoker, cost Alexander his life.
External links
- http://photoarchive.spb.ru:9090/www/generalSearch.do?condition=12&attribute=2500051207&dictionaryValue=&textValue=%D0%9B%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%8F&condition=10&attribute=2500051204&dictionaryValue=&textValue=&condition=10&attribute=2500051202&dictionaryValue=&textValue=&condition=10&attribute=2500051203&dictionaryValue=&textValue=&condition=10&attribute=2500051205&dictionaryValue=&textValue=&condition=10&attribute=2500051206&dictionaryValue=&textValue=&condition=14&attribute=2500051208&dictionaryValue=&textValue=&condition=16&attribute=2500051208&dictionaryValue=&textValue=&condition=10&attribute=2503078589&dictionaryValue=&textValue=&condition=12&attribute=2503078590&dictionaryValue=&textValue=Photographs of the Livadia in Saint Petersburg Archive]
- Detailed photographs of a scale model