Svyataya Anna
Encyclopedia
The ship Svyataya Anna (Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

: Святая Анна), named after Saint Anne
Saint Anne
Saint Hanna of David's house and line, was the mother of the Virgin Mary and grandmother of Jesus Christ according to Christian and Islamic tradition. English Anne is derived from Greek rendering of her Hebrew name Hannah...

, was the Philomel-class gunvessel
Philomel class gunvessel
The Philomel-class gunvessel was a class of wooden-hulled screw-driven second-class gunvessels built for the Royal Navy between 1859 and 1867, of which 26 were ordered but only 20 completed. They had a mixed history, with some serving for as little as 5 years, and others surviving into the 1880s...

 HMS Newport launched in England in 1867. She was sold in 1881 and renamed Pandora II. She was purchased again in about 1890 and renamed Blencathra, taking part in expeditions to the north coast of Russia. She was bought in 1912 by Georgy Brusilov
Georgy Brusilov
Georgy Lvovich Brusilov or Hryhoriy Brusylov was a Ukrainian Russian naval officer of the Imperial Russian Navy and an Arctic explorer...

 for use in his ill-fated 1912 Arctic expedition to explore the Northern Sea Route
Northern Sea Route
The Northern Sea Route is a shipping lane officially defined by Russian legislation from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean specifically running along the Russian Arctic coast from Murmansk on the Barents Sea, along Siberia, to the Bering Strait and Far East. The entire route lies in Arctic...

. The ship became firmly trapped in ice; only two members of the expedition, Valerian Albanov
Valerian Albanov
Valerian Ivanovich Albanov was a Russian navigator, best known for being one of only two survivors of the ill-fated Brusilov expedition of 1912.-Biography:...

 and Alexander Konrad
Alexander Konrad
Alexander Eduardovich Konrad was a Russian sailor. Along with Valerian Albanov, he was one of the only two survivors, and the only surviving sailor of the ill-fated Brusilov expedition.-Biography:...

, survived. The ship has never been found.

Design

The Philomel-class gunvessels were an enlargement of the earlier Algerine-class gunboat of 1856
Algerine class gunboat
The Algerine-class gunboats were a class of five 3-gun wooden gunboats built for the Royal Navy in 1857...

. The first six of the class were ordered by the Admiralty from the naval dockyards between April 1857 and April 1859. Another twelve were ordered on 14 June 1859 to be constructed by contract in private yards, receiving their names on 24 September the same year; these were then fitted out at naval dockyards. The last eight of the class, of which Newport was the first, were ordered on 5 March 1860 for construction in naval dockyards, although six of them were later cancelled.

Construction

Newport was laid down at Pembroke Dockyard in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 on 17 September 1860. She and Alban were suspended in 1862, and six of the uncompleted vessels, including Alban were cancelled in 1863. She was finally launched on 20 July 1867. She was fitted with a Laird Brothers two-cylinder horizontal single-expansion steam engine driving a single screw and developing 325 ihp.

She was armed with a 68-pounder 95 cwt muzzle-loading smooth-bore gun, two 24-pounder howitzers and two 20-pounder breech-loading guns. All ships of the class later had the 68-pounder replaced by a 7-inch/110-pounder breech-loading gun. The class were fitted with a barque
Barque
A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts.- History of the term :The word barque appears to have come from the Greek word baris, a term for an Egyptian boat. This entered Latin as barca, which gave rise to the Italian barca, Spanish barco, and the French barge and...

-rigged sail plan.

Survey ship

She was commissioned in April 1868 under Commander George Strong Nares, and employed in survey work in the Mediterranean.

Pandora II

She was sold to Sir Allen Young
Allen Young
Sir Allen Young was an English master mariner and explorer, best remembered for his role in Arctic exploration including the search for Sir John Franklin.-Early life:...

 in May 1881. He has previously owned another ex-Philomel-class gunvessel, HMS Pandora, and he named his new ship Pandora II after her.

Blencathra

The ship was sold in about 1890 to the wealthy F W Leyborne-Popham, who intended to use her as a yacht, and had an interest in Arctic waters. Leybourne-Popham appointed Joseph Wiggins
Joseph Wiggins
Joseph Wiggins was an English mariner, born at Norwich. He rounded out a successful career as a sea captain by utilizing a portion of the Northwest Passage. He was the pioneer in demonstrating the practicability of trade relations by sea between the North Sea countries and the northern portion of...

 as captain of Blencathra for an 1893 voyage to the Kara Sea
Kara Sea
The Kara Sea is part of the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia. It is separated from the Barents Sea to the west by the Kara Strait and Novaya Zemlya, and the Laptev Sea to the east by the Severnaya Zemlya....

 and into the Yenisei River
Yenisei River
Yenisei , also written as Yenisey, is the largest river system flowing to the Arctic Ocean. It is the central of the three great Siberian rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean...

, thus taking the ship to the furthest reaches of Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

. To combine business with pleasure, he formed a syndicate to exploit the commercial opportunities offered by the carriage of cargo to the far north. As plans were being finalised, Wiggins received an urgent request from the Russians to carry rails for the Trans-Siberian Railway
Trans-Siberian Railway
The Trans-Siberian Railway is a network of railways connecting Moscow with the Russian Far East and the Sea of Japan. It is the longest railway in the world...

 up the Yenisey to Krasnoyarsk
Krasnoyarsk
Krasnoyarsk is a city and the administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located on the Yenisei River. It is the third largest city in Siberia, with the population of 973,891. Krasnoyarsk is an important junction of the Trans-Siberian Railway and one of Russia's largest producers of...

. A 2,500-ton steamer, Orestes, was chartered and four Russian river vessels were provided for the final stages of transport in the Yenisey. With the river vessels embarked in Orestes, and Blencathra in company, the group left Vardø
Vardø
is a town and a municipality in Finnmark county in the extreme northeast part of Norway.Vardø was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 . The law required that all cities should be separated from their rural districts, but because of a low population and very few voters, this was...

 on 22 August 1893, reaching the mouth of the Yenisey on 3 September. Blencathra and Orestes returned to England via Arkhangel, while Wiggins stayed with the Russian river vessels, reaching Yeniseysk
Yeniseysk
Yeniseysk is a town in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located on the Yenisei River. Population: 20,000 .Yeniseysk was founded in 1619 as a stockaded town—the first town on the Yenisei River. It played an important role in Russian colonization of East Siberia in the 17th–18th centuries...

 on 23 October.

Among the party was Miss Helen Peel, granddaughter of Sir Robert Peel
Robert Peel
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet was a British Conservative statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 December 1834 to 8 April 1835, and again from 30 August 1841 to 29 June 1846...

, who wrote a book about her experiences entitled Polar Gleams.

Leybourne-Popham sold his yacht to Major Andrew Coats, and in company with William Speirs Bruce, Coats made a long hunting voyage to the Arctic waters around Novaya Zemlya and Spitsbergen. Bruce joined Blencathra at Tromsø
Tromsø
Tromsø is a city and municipality in Troms county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Tromsø.Tromsø city is the ninth largest urban area in Norway by population, and the seventh largest city in Norway by population...

, Norway in May 1898, and the cruise explored the Barents Sea
Barents Sea
The Barents Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of Norway and Russia. Known in the Middle Ages as the Murman Sea, the sea takes its current name from the Dutch navigator Willem Barents...

, the dual islands of Novaya Zemlya
Novaya Zemlya
Novaya Zemlya , also known in Dutch as Nova Zembla and in Norwegian as , is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean in the north of Russia and the extreme northeast of Europe, the easternmost point of Europe lying at Cape Flissingsky on the northern island...

, and the island of Kolguyev
Kolguyev
Kolguyev Island is an island in Nenets Autonomous Okrug Russia located in the south-eastern Barents Sea to the north-east of the Kanin Peninsula. The approximately circular-shaped island has a diameter of and is in area. The highest point on the island is at 166 meters...

, before a retreat to Vardø to re-provision for the voyage to Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Constituting the western-most bulk of the archipelago, it borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea...

. In a letter Bruce reported, "This is a pure yachting cruise and life is luxurious". Nevertheless, the scientific purpose of the voyage was not forgotten; measurement of temperature & salinity and meteorological observations went on day and night.

1912 Arctic expedition

A geological feature in the Arctic Ocean
Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions...

basin, the St. Anna or Svyataya Anna Trough, located east of Franz Josef Land, with a depth of 620 m, has been named in memory of this ill-fated ship.
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