The Russian ship ''Dvienadsat Apostolov'' () was the

lead ship The lead ship, name ship, or class leader is the first of a series or class of ships that are all constructed according to the same general design. The term is applicable to naval ships and large civilian vessels. Large ships are very comple ...

of her class of three

first rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a first rate was the designation for the largest ships of the line. Originating in the Jacobean era with the designation of Ships Royal capable of carrying at least ...

ship of the line A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactics in the Age of Sail, naval tactic known as the line of battl ...

built for the

Imperial Russian Navy The Imperial Russian Navy () operated as the navy of the Russian Tsardom and later the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917. Formally established in 1696, it lasted until being dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution and the declaration of ...

. Completed in 1842, she served her whole career with the

Black Sea Fleet The Black Sea Fleet () is the Naval fleet, fleet of the Russian Navy in the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov and the Mediterranean Sea. The Black Sea Fleet, along with other Russian ground and air forces on the Crimea, Crimean Peninsula, are subordin ...

. ''Dvienadsat Apostolov'' took part in the

defence of Sevastopol ''Defence of Sevastopol'' () is a 1911 historical war film about the Siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War and one of the most important films in the history of Russian cinema and cinema in general. It was the first feature film made in th ...

during the

Crimean War The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont fro ...

. Rather than facing the powerful Anglo-French fleet, her guns were landed to reinforce the landward fortifications and she was used as a

hospital ship A hospital ship is a ship designated for primary function as a floating healthcare, medical treatment facility or hospital. Most are operated by the military forces (mostly navy, navies) of various countries, as they are intended to be used in or ...

. On the night of 25/26 February 1854, she was one of the Russian ships that was sunk as a

blockship A blockship is a ship deliberately sunk to prevent a river, channel, or canal from being used as a waterway. It may either be sunk by a navy defending the waterway to prevent the ingress of attacking enemy forces, as in the case of at Portland ...

in the northern bay of Sevastopol.

Design and description

The design of the ''Dvienadsat Apostolov''-class was said to have been based on the 1839 British ship of the line, . The ship was

long between perpendiculars Length between perpendiculars (often abbreviated as p/p, p.p., pp, LPP, LBP or Length BPP) is the length of a ship along the summer load line from the forward surface of the stem, or main bow perpendicular member, to the after surface of the stern ...

and measured at the lower

gundeck The term gun deck used to refer to a deck aboard a ship that was primarily used for the mounting of cannon to be fired in broadsides. The term is generally applied to decks enclosed under a roof; smaller and unrated vessels carried their guns ...

. She had a

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Radio beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially lo ...

of and a deep draught of about . The ship displaced and measured 3,190 tons bm.Tredrea & Sozaev, p. 296 Her modern main armament of 28

Paixhans gun The Paixhans gun (French: ''Canon Paixhans'', ) was the first naval gun designed to fire explosive shells. It was developed by the French general Henri-Joseph Paixhans in 1822–1823. The design furthered the evolution of naval artillery into the ...

s, designed to fire a

explosive shell A shell, in a modern military context, is a projectile whose payload contains an explosive, incendiary, or other chemical filling. Originally it was called a bombshell, but "shell" has come to be unambiguous in a military context. A shell c ...

and located on the lower gundeck; these had been introduced into the Russian Navy in 1838 and were based on the latest British and French designs. Also on that deck were located four 36-pounder long guns. The armament of the middle gundeck consisted of thirty-four short 36-pounder guns, while the upper gundeck was fitted with thirty-four 36-pounder gunnades. Distributed between the forecastle and quarterdeck were twenty-four 24-pounder gunnades, and a variety of

carronade A carronade is a short, smoothbore, cast-iron cannon which was used by the Royal Navy. It was first produced by the Carron Company, an ironworks in Falkirk, Scotland, and was used from the last quarter of the 18th century to the mid-19th cen ...

s: one 24-pounder, two 12-pounders and a pair of 8-pounders.

Service history

''Dvienadsat Apostolov'' was

laid down Laying the keel or laying down is the formal recognition of the start of a ship's construction. It is often marked with a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the shipbuilding company and the ultimate owners of the ship. Keel laying is one ...

on 4 October 1838 at the Nikolaev (modern

Mykolaiv Mykolaiv ( ), also known as Nikolaev ( ) is a List of cities in Ukraine, city and a hromada (municipality) in southern Ukraine. Mykolaiv is the Administrative centre, administrative center of Mykolaiv Raion (Raions of Ukraine, district) and Myk ...

)

shipyard A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are shipbuilding, built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Compared to shipyards, which are sometimes m ...

of S. I. Chernyavskiy and was launched on 15 July 1841. Her first voyage was from Nikolaev to the main Black Sea Fleet base

Sevastopol Sevastopol ( ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea and a major port on the Black Sea. Due to its strategic location and the navigability of the city's harbours, Sevastopol has been an important port and naval base th ...

in 1842, followed by a cruise in the Black Sea. Her first commander was

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

Vladimir Kornilov (1806-1854), who later became an admiral. In 1843, ''Dvienadsat Apostolov'' helped to transport the 13th Infantry Division from Sevastopol to

Odessa ODESSA is an American codename (from the German language, German: ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', meaning: Organization of Former SS Members) coined in 1946 to cover Ratlines (World War II aftermath), Nazi underground escape-pl ...

and then return them. She took part in further cruises in the Black Sea between 1843 and 1847 and between 1849 and 1850. She underwent a refit from 1851 to 1852, during which her carronades were removed. In October 1853, she transported 1,466 Russian troops from Sevastopol to Sukhum Kale (modern

Sukhumi Sukhumi or Sokhumi is a city in a wide bay on the Black Sea's eastern coast. It is both the Capital city, capital and largest city of Abkhazia, a partially recognised state that most countries consider a part of Georgia (country), Georgia. The ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

), where the outbreak of the

had reignited the

Russo-Circassian War The Russo-Circassian War, also known as the Russian invasion of Circassia, was the 101-year-long invasion of Circassia by the Russian Empire. The conflict started in 1763 ( O.S.) with Russia assuming authority in Circassia, followed by Circa ...

. Returning to Sevastopol in April 1854, she participated in the defence of the port by being listed over to one side, so that her main guns could engage the British positions on the hills overlooking the harbour; other guns were landed with their crews to establish an onshore

artillery battery In military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit or multiple systems of artillery, mortar systems, rocket artillery, multiple rocket launchers, surface-to-surface missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, etc., so grouped to f ...

named after the ship, located between the Panaitova ravine and Hollandia Bay to the west of the town. All of her guns had been landed by December 1854, leaving only 80 sailors aboard to convert her into a temporary hospital ship, which was completed on 18 December. ''Dvienadsat Apostolov'' was scuttled on 13 February 1855 as part of a line of blockships to prevent the Anglo-French fleet from entering the harbour. A Russian naval

jack Jack may refer to: Places * Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community * Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community * Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas People and fictional characters * Jack (given name), a male given name, incl ...

, believed to have been taken from the ship by

Henry Keppel Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Keppel, (14 June 1809 – 17 January 1904) was a Royal Navy officer. His first command was largely spent off the coast of Spain, which was then in the midst of the First Carlist War. As commanding officer of the co ...

, is in the collection of the

National Maritime Museum The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the Unit ...

Greenwich Greenwich ( , , ) is an List of areas of London, area in south-east London, England, within the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Greater London, east-south-east of Charing Cross. Greenwich is notable for its maritime hi ...

. Following the end of hostilities, an American salvage engineer, John Gowen, was contracted by the Russian government to recover the sunken vessels and clear the Savastopol roadstead for navigation. Work commenced in the summer of 1857 and continued into 1862. Although some valuable steamships were salvaged, it proved impossible to lift any of the large wooden warships, which were firmly embedded in silt and heavily damaged by the shipworm ''

Teredo navalis ''Teredo navalis'', commonly called the naval shipworm or turu, is a species of saltwater clam, a marine bivalve mollusc in the family '' Teredinidae''. This species is the type species of the genus '' Teredo''. Like other species in this family ...

''. It was found that these ships could only be removed by the use of explosives. In the summer of 1862, Tsar Alexander II and Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich visited Sevastopol to see the cleared harbour and thank Gowen for his work, but because of his failure to raise any of the major warships, Gowan was never paid and his equipment was confiscated. In 1905, the Monument to the Sunken Ships was erected in Sevastapol Harbour on the 50th anniversary of the siege, to commemorate the scuttling of the Black Sea Fleet.

Notes

Footnotes

Bibliography

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External links

* {{Commons category-inline, Dvenadtsat Apostolov (ship, 1841) Ships of the line of the Imperial Russian Navy 1841 ships Crimean War ships Scuttled vessels