Neva (1802 Russian ship)

The Russian ship Neva visits Kodiak
History
United Kingdom
Name:	Thames
Launched:	1801
Fate:	Sold 1802
Russian Empire
Name:	Thames
Acquired:	1802 by purchase
Renamed:	Neva in 1803
Fate:	Wrecked Sitka, Alaska, 1812
General characteristics
Tons burthen:	370 bm
Length:	200 ft (61 m)
Sail plan:	Sloop
Complement:	43
Armament:	14 guns

Neva was the British merchant ship Thames, launched in 1801, that the Russians bought in 1803, and renamed Neva. She participated in two trips to the Far East, the first of which was the first Russian circumnavigation of the world. She was wrecked in January 1813.

Thames was a 200-foot (61 m)-long, three-masted sailing ship of 370 tons burthen, built in Britain in 1801.

In 1802 Lieutenant Commander Yuri Feodorovich Lisyansky travelled to Britain where he bought two vessels, Thames and Leander, on his own account.

Thames and Leander left England for the Baltic in May 1803, docking at Kronstadt on 5 June. Czar Alexander I renamed Thames to Neva, after the river, and Leander to Nadezhda ("Hope"). The two vessels sailed in 1803 on a voyage that would become the first Russian circumnavigation of the world. For the voyage Neva carried 14 cannon and a crew of 43 men under Lisyansky's command. The commander of the expedition was Admiral Ivan Fyodorovich Kruzenstern, in Nadezhda. Although the vessels were armed, as were many merchant vessels at the time, they were never commissioned into the Russian navy.

Neva played a key role in the 1804 battle of Sitka when the Russians recaptured Fort St Archangel Mikhail and the town from the Tlingit, who had captured it in 1802. In 1804, Alexandr Baranov, general manager of the Russian American Company, had failed in his attempt to recapture Fort St Archangel Mikhail with a force of 120 Russians in four small vessels and 800 Aleuts in 300 baidarkas (leather canoes). Baranov returned to Sitka Sound in late September 1804 aboard Neva. Neva was accompanied by the Ermak and two other smaller, armed sailing ships, manned by 150 promyshlenniks (fur traders), along with 400–500 Aleuts in 250 baidarkas. This force succeeded in returning the region to Russian control. Reportedly, afterwards a shaman placed a curse on Neva and all on her in retribution; some 14 years later she wrecked.