Russian monitor Rusalka

Rusalka in drydock, 1868
History
Russian Empire
NameRusalka
NamesakeRusalka
Ordered26 January 1865[Note 1]
BuilderAdmiralty Shipyard, St. Petersburg
Cost762,000 rubles
Laid down6 June 1866
Launched12 September 1867
In service1869
ReclassifiedAs coast-defense ironclad, 13 February 1892
Stricken26 October 1893
FateSank in the Gulf of Finland, 7 September 1893
General characteristics (as completed)
Class and typeCharodeika-class monitor
Displacement2,100 long tons (2,134 t)
Length206 ft (62.8 m) (waterline)
Beam42 ft (12.8 m)
Draft12 ft 7 in (3.8 m)
Installed power
Propulsion2 shafts, 2 Horizontal direct-action steam engines
Speed8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph)
Complement172 officers and crewmen
Armament
Armor

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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