Svyataya Anna

Svyataya Anna in her incarnation as the yacht Blencathra, from Helen Peel's Polar Gleams
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 & 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. 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.