HMS Discovery (1874)

HMS Discovery (foreground) and HMS Alert (background, right)
History
United Kingdom
Name:	Bloodhound
Builder:	Stephens & Sons, Dundee
Yard number:	53
Completed:	1873
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Discovery
Acquired:	Purchased 5 December 1874
Commissioned:	13 April 1875
Fate:	Sold February 1902
General characteristics
Tonnage:	1247 tons
Length:	166 ft (51 m)
Beam:	29 ft (8.8 m)
Draught:	16.5 ft (5.0 m)
Installed power:	Indicated 312 hp (233 kW)
Propulsion:	Greenock Foundry Company steam engine
Sail plan:	Barque-rigged
Complement:	60

HMS Discovery was a wooden screw storeship, formerly the whaling ship Bloodhound. She was purchased in 1874 for the British Arctic Expedition of 1875–1876 and was sold in 1902.

Built in Dundee by Stephens & Sons as the whaler Bloodhound in 1873, she was ideally suited to Arctic exploration. She was purchased by the Admiralty on 5 December 1874 and converted for exploration, commissioning on 13 April 1875. She carried a barque-rig and her Greenock Foundry Company steam engine generated an indicated 312 horsepower.

Captain George Strong Nares was placed in command of the 1875 British Arctic Expedition, which aimed to reach the North Pole via Smith Sound, the sea passage between Greenland and Canada's northernmost island, Ellesmere Island. Contemporary geographers proposed that there could be an Open Polar Sea, and that if the thick layer of ice surrounding it were overcome, access to the North Pole by sea might be possible. Ever since Edward Augustus Inglefield had penetrated Smith Sound in 1852, it had been a likely route to the North. Nares commanded the converted sloop HMS Alert, and with him went Discovery, commanded by Captain Henry Frederick Stephenson.HMS Valorous carried extra stores and accompanied the expedition as far as Godhavn.

Despite finding heavier-than-expected ice, the expedition pressed on. Leaving Discovery to winter at Lady Franklin Bay, Alert carried on a further 50 nautical miles (93 km; 58 mi) through the Robeson Channel, establishing her winter quarters at Floeberg Beach. Spring 1876 saw considerable activity by sledge, charting the coasts of Ellesmere Island and Greenland, but scurvy had begun to take hold, with Alert suffering the greatest burden. On 3 April the second-in-command of Alert, Albert Hastings Markham, took a party north to attempt the Pole. By 11 May, having made slow progress, they reached their greatest latitude at 83° 20' 26"N. Suffering from snow blindness, scurvy and exhaustion, they turned back.