HMS Newport (1867)
Svyataya Anna in her incarnation as the yacht Blencathra, from Helen Peel's Polar Gleams
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| History | |
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 United Kingdom
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| Name: | HMS Newport |
| Ordered: | 5 March 1860 |
| Builder: | Pembroke Dockyard |
| Laid down: |
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| Launched: | 20 July 1867 |
| Commissioned: | April 1868 |
| Fate: | Sold to Sir Allen Young in May 1881 |
 United Kingdom
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| Name: | Pandora II |
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United Kingdom
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| Name: | Blencathra |
| Owner: |
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 Russia
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| Name: |
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| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Philomel-class wooden screw gunvessel |
| Displacement: | 570 tons |
| Length: | |
| Beam: | 25 ft 4 in (7.7 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 13 ft (3.96 m) |
| Installed power: | 325 ihp (242 kW) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 9.25 knots (17 km/h) |
| Complement: | 60 |
| Armament: |
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The Philomel-class gunvessel HMS Newport was launched in England in 1867. Having become the first ship to pass through the Suez Canal, 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 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.
The Philomel-class gunvessels were an enlargement of the earlier Algerine-class gunboat of 1856. 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.
Newport was laid down at Pembroke Dockyard in Wales 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 indicated horsepower (242 kW).
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-rigged sail plan.
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