USS Jeannette (1878)
USS Jeannette
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| History | |
|---|---|
 United Kingdom
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| Name: | HMS Pandora |
| Ordered: | 8 April 1859 |
| Builder: | Pembroke Dockyard, Wales |
| Laid down: | 30 March 1860 |
| Launched: | 7 February 1861 |
| Commissioned: | September 1861 |
| Fate: | Sold to Sir Allen Young in 1875 |
 United Kingdom
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| Name: | Pandora |
| Fate: | Sold to James Gordon Bennett, Jr. in 1878 |
 United States
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| Name: | USS Jeannette |
| Fate: | Sunk, 13 June 1881 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Gunboat |
| Tonnage: | 428 tons (Builders Measure) |
| Displacement: | 570 long tons (580 t) |
| Length: | 142 ft (43 m) |
| Beam: | 25 ft (7.6 m) |
| Draft: | 13 ft (4.0 m) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Sail plan: | Bark-rigged |
| Complement: | 28 officers and men |
USS Jeannette was a naval exploration vessel which in 1879–81, under the command of George W. De Long, undertook an ill-fated voyage to the Arctic. After being trapped in the ice and drifting for almost two years, the ship was released from its ice-grip, then trapped again, crushed and sunk some 300 nautical miles (560 km; 350 mi) north of the Siberian coast. De Long and most of his crew reached land, but many of them, including De Long, subsequently perished in the wastes of the Lena Delta.
The vessel had begun its active career in 1861 as HMS Pandora, a Royal Navy gunboat. After more than a decade's service off the West African coast and in the Mediterranean, Pandora was retired from duty and sold as a private yacht to a British explorer, Allen Young. Young took her on two voyages to the Arctic, in 1875 and 1876, before selling her to James Gordon Bennett, Jr., proprietor of The New York Herald, who changed its name to Jeannette. Although it sailed to the Arctic under the U.S. flag, subject to naval laws and discipline, Bennett remained responsible for the costs of the expedition.
In 2015 a Russian explorer and media celebrity announced that there were plans to raise Jeannette from the seabed, as a gesture of Russian-American friendship.
The ship that became USS Jeannette began her life as a Royal Navy gunboat, built at the Pembroke Naval Dockyards in 1860. She was of wooden construction, 146 feet (45 m) in length and 25 feet (7.6 m) at the beam, with a draught of 25 feet (7.6 m). Her tonnage, calculated by Builder's Measure, was 428 tons, with a displacement of 570 tons. She was rigged as a barque, but her principal means of propulsion was by a steam-driven screw. Her armament was five guns. After her launch on 7 February 1861, Pandora was taken from Pembroke to Portsmouth Dockyard, where she was fitted with her engines and boilers, and underwent trials before commissioning. On October 22 she concluded her trials successfully, achieving a speed of 9.25 knots over a measured mile.
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Wikipedia