Russian frigate Alexander Neuski

"Alexander Neuski" (also called "Alexander Nevsky" or "Alexander Nevski", after the famous Russian historical figure) was a large screw frigate of the Russian Imperial Navy. The ship was designed as part of a challenge being offered by the Russian Empire to the Royal Navy, but was lost in a shipwreck in 1868 while the Grand Duke of Russia was aboard.

Design, military service and extended visit to the United States

"Alexander Neuski" was a screw frigate -- at 5,100 tons, and mounting 51 smoothbore cannon, it was a large vessel for its class. ["Harper's Weekly", October 17, 1863, page 661] The ship's cannons were all sixty-pounder smoothbores, divided into long-and medium-class guns. [Ibid, p. 662] The vessel was part of the expansion of the Russian Imperial Navy in cooperation with the United States of America, in order to challenge then-rival Great Britain's Royal Navy. The ship was designed by Americans and carried American armament. [Mordwinken, George. "Russian White Guards", 2003, Trafford Publishing, 183.]

Once commissioned, the vessel was part of the Atlantic Squadron of Rear Admiral Lessovsky. In 1863, Lessovsky sailed the Atlantic Squadron, using the "Alexander Neuski" 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. ["Harper's Weekly", ibid] The fleet's American design was noted with enthusiasm by American spectators. For instance, it was noted in "Harper's Weekly" that:

"The two largest in the squadron, the frigate" Alexander Nevski "(sic) 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." ["Harper's Weekly", "Ibid", p. 662]

"Alexander Neuski" and the other vessels of the Atlantic squadron stayed in American waters for seven months, despite the state of civil war then existing in the United States, even dropping anchor at Washington, D.C., the ships having sailed up the Potomac River. ["Ibid".] At one point during this extended stay, "Alexander Neuski" had engine problems during a local cruise and had to return to New York for repairs.

Shipwreck

On September 25, 1868, on its way home from a visit to Piraeus, where it had participated in the celebration of Greek King George’s wedding to Grand Duchess Olga of Russia, and while carrying Grand Duke Alexei, son of Czar Alexander II, "Alexander Neuski" became shipwrecked off the coast of Thyborøn, a fishing village in Jutland. The vessel was travelling under sail at the time, and the admiral then aboard had seriously misjudged the precise location of the vessel as it sailed along the nighttime Jutland coast. Buffeted by rain, the "Alexander Neuski" 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, other than 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 of water, only 300 feet from the present coast of Thyborøn. [ [http://www.numa.net/expeditions/north_sea_and_english_channel_hunt.html www.numa.net] ] 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 Russian fleet. [ [http://www.lemvigmuseum.dk/AlexanderNevskijEN.htm Lemvig Museum] ] 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. [Pleshakov, Constantine. "The Tsar's Last Armada: The Epic Voyage to the Battle of Tsushima". 2002, Basic Books, p. 21.]

The ship's name, a famous Russian one, was later transferred to a cruiser after the loss of the screw-frigate.

The wreck today

The present location of the wreck is at coord|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.

References