Svyataya Anna

Svyataya Anna in her incarnation as the yacht Blencathra, from Helen Peel's Polar Gleams[1]
History
United Kingdom
NameHMS Newport
Ordered5 March 1860
BuilderPembroke Dockyard
Laid down
  • 17 September 1860
  • Suspended in 1862
Launched20 July 1867
CommissionedApril 1868
FateSold to Sir Allen Young in May 1881
United Kingdom
NamePandora II
United Kingdom
NameBlencathra
Owner
  • F W Leybourne-Popham
  • (later, Major Andrew Coats)
Russia
Name
  • Svyataya Anna
  • (Russian: Святая Анна)
FatePresumed crushed by ice and lost 1914
General characteristics
Class and typePhilomel-class wooden screw gunvessel
Displacement570 tons
Length
  • 145 ft (44.2 m) oa
  • 127 ft 10.25 in (39.0 m) pp
Beam25 ft 4 in (7.7 m)
Depth of hold13 ft (3.96 m)
Installed power325 ihp (242 kW)
Propulsion
  • Single 2 cyl. horizontal single-expansion steam engine
  • Single screw
Speed9.25 knots (17.13 km/h; 10.64 mph)
Complement60
Armament
  • As built:
  • 1 × 68 pdr muzzle-loading smooth-bore gun
  • 2 × 24 pdr howitzers
  • 2 × 20 pdr breech-loading guns
  • After 1881:
  • None

The Philomel-class gunvessel HMS Newport was launched in Wales in 1867. Having become the first ship to pass through the Suez Canal, she was sold in 1881 and renamed Pandora II.[2] She was purchased again in about 1890 and renamed Blencathra,[2] taking part in expeditions to the north coast of Russia. She was bought in 1912 by Georgy Brusilov for use in his ill-fated 1912 Arctic expedition to explore the Northern Sea Route, and was named Svyataya Anna (Russian: Святая Анна), after Saint Anne. The ship became firmly trapped in ice; only two members of the expedition, Valerian Albanov and Alexander Konrad, survived. The ship has never been found.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference PG was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference RW was invoked but never defined (see the help page).