 Rusalka in drydock, 1868
| |
| History | |
|---|---|
 Russian Empire | |
| Name | Rusalka |
| Namesake | Rusalka |
| Ordered | 26 January 1865[Note 1] |
| Builder | Admiralty Shipyard, St. Petersburg |
| Cost | 762,000 rubles |
| Laid down | 6 June 1866 |
| Launched | 12 September 1867 |
| In service | 1869 |
| Reclassified | As coast-defense ironclad, 13 February 1892 |
| Stricken | 26 October 1893 |
| Fate | Sank in the Gulf of Finland, 7 September 1893 |
| General characteristics (as completed) | |
| Class and type | Charodeika-class monitor |
| Displacement | 2,100 long tons (2,134 t) |
| Length | 206 ft (62.8 m) (waterline) |
| Beam | 42 ft (12.8 m) |
| Draft | 12 ft 7 in (3.8 m) |
| Installed power | |
| Propulsion | 2 shafts, 2 Horizontal direct-action steam engines |
| Speed | 8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph) |
| Complement | 172 officers and crewmen |
| Armament |
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| Armor |
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Rusalka (Russian: Русалка, Mermaid), was one of two Charodeika-class monitors built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the 1860s. She served for her entire career with the Baltic Fleet. Aside from hitting an uncharted rock not long after she was completed in 1869, she had an uneventful career. Rusalka sank in a storm in 1893 with the loss of all hands in the Gulf of Finland. In 1902, a memorial was built in Reval (Tallinn) to commemorate her loss. Her wreck was rediscovered in 2003, bow-down in the mud, which has prompted a new theory regarding her loss.
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