Russian frigate Alexander Neuski
Encyclopedia
Alexander Nevsky
Alexander Nevsky was the Prince of Novgorod and Grand Prince of Vladimir during some of the most trying times in the city's history. Commonly regarded as the key figure of medieval Rus, Alexander was the grandson of Vsevolod the Big Nest and rose to legendary status on account of his military...
, was a large screw frigate
Screw frigate
Steam frigates and the smaller steam corvettes were steam-powered warships.The first vessel that can be considered a steam frigate was the Demologos which was launched in 1815 for the United States Navy....
of the Russian Imperial Navy. The ship was designed as part of a challenge being offered by the Russian Empire to the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
, but was lost in a shipwreck in 1868 while Grand Duke Alexei
Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia
Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia was the sixth child and the fourth son of Alexander II of Russia and his first wife Maria Alexandrovna . Destined to a naval career, Alexei Alexandrovich started his military training at the age of 7...
, son of Tsar Alexander II
Alexander II of Russia
Alexander II , also known as Alexander the Liberator was the Emperor of the Russian Empire from 3 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881...
, was aboard.
Design, military service and extended visit to the United States
Alexander Nevsky was a screw frigate—at 5,100 tons, and mounting 51 smoothbore cannon, it was a large vessel for its class. The ship's cannon were all sixty-pounder smoothbores, divided into long- and medium-class guns. The vessel was part of the expansion of the Russian Imperial Navy in cooperation with the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, in order to challenge then-rival Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
's Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
. The ship was designed by Americans and carried American armament.
Once commissioned, the vessel was part of the Atlantic Squadron of Rear Admiral Lessovsky. In 1863, Lessovsky sailed the Atlantic Squadron, using the Alexander Nevsky as his flagship, to New York City in order to show the flag during a low point in Anglo-Russian relations. The ship's captain at the time was Captain Federovski. The fleet's American design was noted with enthusiasm by American spectators. For instance, it was noted in Harper's Weekly
Harper's Weekly
Harper's Weekly was an American political magazine based in New York City. Published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916, it featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects, and humor...
that:
The two largest in the squadron, the frigate Alexander Nevski and Peresvet, are evidently vessels of modern build, and much about them leads the unpracticed eye to think they were built in this country ... The flagship's guns are of American make, being cast in Pittsburgh.
Alexander Nevsky and the other vessels of the Atlantic squadron stayed in American waters for seven months, despite the state of civil war
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
then existing in the United States, even dropping anchor at Washington, D.C., the ships having sailed up the Potomac River. At one point during this extended stay, Alexander Nevsky had engine problems during a local cruise and had to return to New York for repairs.
Shipwreck
Piraeus
Piraeus is a city in the region of Attica, Greece. Piraeus is located within the Athens Urban Area, 12 km southwest from its city center , and lies along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf....
, where it had participated in the celebration of Greek King George
George I of Greece
George I was King of Greece from 1863 to 1913. Originally a Danish prince, George was only 17 years old when he was elected king by the Greek National Assembly, which had deposed the former king Otto. His nomination was both suggested and supported by the Great Powers...
’s wedding to Grand Duchess Olga
Olga Konstantinovna of Russia
Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia , later Queen Olga of the Hellenes , was the queen consort of King George I of Greece and briefly in 1920, Queen Regent of Greece...
of Russia, and while carrying Grand Duke Alexei
Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia
Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia was the sixth child and the fourth son of Alexander II of Russia and his first wife Maria Alexandrovna . Destined to a naval career, Alexei Alexandrovich started his military training at the age of 7...
, son of Tsar Alexander II
Alexander II of Russia
Alexander II , also known as Alexander the Liberator was the Emperor of the Russian Empire from 3 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881...
, Alexander Nevsky became shipwreck
Shipwreck
A shipwreck is what remains of a ship that has wrecked, either sunk or beached. Whatever the cause, a sunken ship or a wrecked ship is a physical example of the event: this explains why the two concepts are often overlapping in English....
ed off the coast of Thyborøn
Thyborøn
Thyborøn is a fishing village in Jutland, Denmark with a population of 2,241 , primarily famous for being the site of numerous shipwrecks, such as that of the Imperial Russian naval vessel Alexander Neuski....
, a fishing village in Jutland
Jutland
Jutland , historically also called Cimbria, is the name of the peninsula that juts out in Northern Europe toward the rest of Scandinavia, forming the mainland part of Denmark. It has the North Sea to its west, Kattegat and Skagerrak to its north, the Baltic Sea to its east, and the Danish–German...
. The vessel was travelling by sail at that time and both the admiral (who had been responsible for Grand Duke Alexei's naval education) and the ship's captain miscalculated the ship's position due to incorrect drift information recorded in the pilot book. Buffeted by rain, the Alexander Nevsky struck a sandbar, and its masts and some of the ship's cannons had to be pitched into the sea to prevent the vessel from immediately capsizing.
Responding to the ship's distress signal (a gun was fired), the local fishermen poured out into the now becalmed sea and rescued all of the ship's crew, aside from five crewmen who had drowned while attempting to reach shore in one of the ship's liferafts.
The warship eventually sank, the wreck settling in roughly 60 feet (18.3 m) of water, only 300 feet (91.4 m) from the present coast of Thyborøn. The captain and admiral aboard were convicted of dereliction of duty at a court-martial, but the tsar intervened and pardoned them due to their long service to the fleet. Grand Duke Alexei often claimed that he almost drowned when the ship went down, and enjoyed telling the story through the rest of his life.
The ship's name was later transferred to a cruiser.
The wreck today
The wreck is located at 56°41′N 08°08′E.The shipwreck was the topic of a great deal of local and international reporting at the time, and is the subject of a major exhibition at the Lemvig Museum
Lemvig Museum
The Lemvig Museum is a local museum in Lemvig, Denmark. It has a number of exhibits about local points of interest, most notably the wreck of the Russian warship Alexander Neuski in 1868, which is the subject of a major multimedia exhibition....
.