"Mermaid" - an armadillo of the coastal defense of the Russian imperial fleet , which sank on September 7 ( 19 ), 1893 off the coast of Finland .
| "Mermaid" | |
|---|---|
 "Mermaid" at Sandwick Dock. Helsingfors , 1890 | |
| Service | |
 Russia | |
| Named after | |
| Class and type of vessel | Coastal defense battleship |
| Port of registry | Revel |
| Organization | Russian imperial fleet |
| Manufacturer | "Galley island" St. Petersburg |
| Ordered to build | January 14 ( 26 ), 1865 |
| Construction started | May 1865 |
| Launched | August 31 ( September 12 ), 1867 |
| Commissioned | May 1869 |
| Withdrawn from the fleet | October 11 ( 23 ), 1893 |
| Status | Sank in the Gulf of Finland 7 ( 19 ) On September 1893 year is not raised |
| Main characteristics | |
| Displacement | design 1881 tons, actual 2100 tons |
| Length | 62.8 m |
| Width | 12.8 m |
| Draft | 3.36 m |
| Reservation | Board 114 mm, towers 140 mm |
| Engines | 2 horizontal steam engines |
| Power | 705 hp |
| Mover | 2, 150 tons of coal supply |
| Speed | 9 knots (16.6 km / h ) |
| Crew | 12 officers and 160 sailors |
| Armament | |
| Artillery | 4 × 229 mm / 20 kb guns 8 × 87 mm / 24 kb guns 5 × 37 mm guns |
Content
History
The armored boat “Mermaid” was laid in 1866 on Galerny Island in St. Petersburg. The launch took place on 31 August ( 12 September ) 1867 year. In the fleet since 1868 , assigned to the armored squadron of the Baltic Fleet.
In the summer campaign of 1869, S.O. Makarov served on the Mermaid. At the end of the campaign, the first accident occurred on the boat, which almost ended in the death of the ship. Following in the skerries, the “Mermaid” touched the starboard side of the pitfall. A leak was formed in the bow, which was only managed by divers after landing the bow of the ship aground.
Having studied the causes of the accident of the Mermaid and other ships, S.O. Makarov in 1870 published in the Marine Collection the work Armored Boat Mermaid. Investigation of the buoyancy of the boat and facilities offered to address this quality. " [1] In his work, Makarov proposed a number of tools to combat underwater holes (including a patch of canvas mats), approved and adopted by the Ministry of the Sea .
On February 1 ( 13 ), 1892 , the Mermaid armored boat was transferred to the category of coastal defense battleships. It was part of the teaching and artillery detachment of the Baltic Fleet.
The death of the "Mermaid"
At 8 hours 40 minutes on September 7 ( 19 ), 1893 , the battleship Rusalka, under the command of Captain 2nd rank V. Kh. Jenish, left Revel’s harbor, having orders to follow to Helsingfors and then connected to the Tuca gunboat in Björk . On the way, in the area of the Revelshtein floating beacon, due to a nine-point storm and fog, the ships lost sight of each other. The commander of the Tucha boat, Captain of the 2nd rank N. M. Lushkov , contrary to the order to follow in conjunction with the Mermaid, decided to follow further and at 15 o’clock on September 7 ( 19 ), 1893 , the Tucha arrived in Helsingfors. Lushkov in a telegram to the commander of the training and artillery detachment, Rear Admiral P. S. Burachek, did not mention the absence of the “Mermaid,” nor did he report to the commander of the Sveaborg port. On September 8 (20), Lushkov sent a new telegram to Burachek, asking him to wait for him the “Mermaid” or to follow in Bierke, but this telegram did not reach the addressee.
In turn, Rear Admiral Burachek, after receiving the first telegram from Lushkov, did not take any measures to establish the fate of the Mermaid, and on September 8 (20) left with the remaining ships of the training and artillery detachment “Firstborn” and “Kremlin” from Revel in Bierke, where Arrived on the morning of September 9 (21) . In Bierke Burachek also did not take measures to establish the whereabouts of the “Mermaid” and “Clouds”. At this time, the boat "Cloud" was on the way from Helsingfors to Bierke. Entering the port of Rochensalma, Lushkov sent a telegram to Burachek whether he should wait for the Mermaid or follow on. Having received this telegram on September 10 (22) , Burachek asked Helsingfors if the Mermaid had arrived there, and only after that he notified the battleship of the Main Naval Headquarters, where it was already known about the fate of the Mermaid from the commanders of the Sveaborg fortress artillery, Sveaborg and Revel ports [2] .
The first information about the “Mermaid” was received in the port of Sveaborg late in the evening of September 9 (21) from the Helsingfors police chief, who reported the discovery of a boat on the island of Kremar with the corpse of sailor 2 of the article by Ivan Prunsky. On September 10 (22), several broken boats and wooden fragments, as well as other items from the battleship “Mermaid”, were discovered on Sandhamn Island, which was immediately reported to the Main Naval Headquarters.
On October 11 ( 23 ), 1893 , by the Highest Order, the battleship of the coastal defense “Mermaid” was excluded from the lists of the ships of the Russian Imperial Navy.
In 1900, a committee was set up to collect donations for the construction of the monument to the battleship Rusalka , and by the ninth anniversary of the death of the ship in the Revelsky seaside park, Kadriorg Amandus Adamson erected a monument in the form of a bronze angel standing on a granite pedestal with the inscription: “The Russians do not forget their heroes martyr. "
Court
In January 1894, a naval court was held in the case of the death of the battleship "Mermaid". During the trial, assumptions were made about the causes of the death of the ship, as well as charges were brought against the commander of the training and artillery detachment Rear Admiral P. S. Burachek and the commander of the gunboat "Cloud" captain 2nd rank N. M. Lushkov .
The verdict announced on February 14 ( 26 ), 1894 , and approved on February 28 by Emperor Alexander III , read: [3]
| Rear Admiral Pavel Stepanovich Burachek, 56 years old, for lack of caution in choosing the weather for sending the battleship Rusalka and the Tucha boat to sea, unlawful inaction of the authorities and poor supervision of subordinates to reprimand the order, and the commander of the boat Tucha ", Captain of the 2nd rank Nikolai Mikhailovich Lushkov, 39 years old, for failure to comply with the orders of the head through negligence and for unlawful inaction of the authorities to remove from office ... |
The versions put forward during the investigation about the causes of the death of the battleship boiled down to the following: the ship could be flooded with waves after loss of controllability, or it could get a hole when it hit pitfalls. Assumptions about the death due to the poor technical condition of the ship, the explosion of boilers or an explosion in a room with ammunition were rejected as untenable. The court in its decision cemented these assumptions. [four]
The writer K. G. Paustovsky , who spoke with the divers of the Special Underwater Expedition who took part in the search for the sunken battleship, published his version of the catastrophe on the pages of the Black Sea (the story “Peas in the Hold”): [5]
| In autumn, short storms often pass over the Gulf of Finland. They begin at noon and rage until evening. The Mermaid had to go out at dawn to slip into Helsingfors before noon. But the admiral ordered to leave at nine in the morning, and the battleship did not dare to disobey. Following the usual negligence in the tsarist fleet, the “Mermaid” forgot the wooden covers on the shore, with which the entrance and skylights are lifted during a storm. <...> At ten o'clock in the morning broke gale force nine points. The "Mermaid" began to flood. When the storm began, the whole team is hidden inside the battleship. Huge waves hit the stern of the ship and flew across the low deck, breaking the superstructure. They poured into open hatches and necks. There was nothing to think about going onto the deck - she was all hidden under the raging waves. The commander and helmsmen remaining on the upper bridge were firmly tied with ropes to the handrails. The waves intensified. They began to lash across the bridge. Water fell into the pipes. The stoppered armadillo filled with water, there was no air. The thrust in the pipes fell, and the car began to take. This led to the fact that the waves overtook the ship and destroyed everything that was on the deck. Battleship, more and more taking on water. Finally, the firebox filled with water, and the car stood up. Then the “Mermaid” turned side to the wave, overturned, and the battleship went down. Not a single person sailed because people were either tied to handrails or clogged in a steel box of an armadillo. |
Search for the Mermaid
The search for the “Mermaid” and crew began on September 10 ( 22 ), 1893 in the area of the Eransgrund floating lighthouse, as the alleged location of the ship’s death. Searches, in which 15 vessels participated, lasted 37 days (until October 16 (27) ) and were suspended due to the onset of frost and winter storms. In the search for various items and parts of the superstructure of "Mermaid" were found. None of the officers and sailors were saved, the place of the death of the battleship could not be found.
In June - August 1894, attempts were made to search for the sunken battleship Rusalka using divers, trawls and a balloon towed by a self-propelled vessel with observers, but they did not give a positive result, and on August 15 ( 27 ), 1894 the search was officially terminated.
In 1932, divers of the Special Purpose Underwater Expedition (EPRON), searching for the sunken submarine No. 9 in 1931, reported the discovery of an unknown ship lying at the bottom of the hull. The fact that this ship is a “Mermaid” was reported in the article by L. V. Larionov “The death of the Mermaid and her searches” [6] and in the memoirs of the former head of EPRON N. P. Chiker [7] . I. Goldman, who studied the archives of the expedition to search for a submarine No. 9, which was stored in the Central State Archive of the Navy of the USSR, did not find any reports of the discovery of the battleship “Mermaid” in 1932. [8] At the same time, K. D. Zolotovsky (naval officer, diver, veteran of the Great Patriotic War, writer), who worked in EPRON in the 30s, in the children's storybook “Fish-Blanket” (the story “Nine”) rather accurately indicates the depth and position of the vessel [9] :
| Seventy-seven meters. - I'm on the ground, - reported the diver. - Inspect. Vessel. Lying upright on a high rock. |
In July 2003, the Estonian research vessel Mare (Captain Vello Meass) discovered a wreck on the bottom of the Gulf of Finland, after the divers had descended, identified as the battleship Mermaid. [10] The ship was discovered south of the search area in 1893-1894 and the place indicated in the article by Larionov. The battleship does not lie on the ground, but stands upright at a depth of 74 meters, stern upward, half immersed in silt, 25 kilometers south of Helsinki. [eleven]
Estonian documentary filmmakers made the film “The Secret of the Mermaid” .
Gallery
Notes
- ↑ Marine collection. 1870, Nos. 3, 5, 6.
- ↑ Goldman I. “The Mermaid”. - Construction, swimming, death and quest. - Tallinn: Eesti Raamat, 1978. - P. 23-33.
- ↑ Goldman I. “The Mermaid”. - Construction, swimming, death and quest. - Tallinn: Eesti Raamat, 1978. - P. 44-45.
- ↑ Goldman I. “The Mermaid”. - Construction, swimming, death and quest. - Tallinn: Eesti Raamat, 1978. - P. 42-44.
- ↑ Paustovsky K. G. Peas in the hold // Black Sea. - M.: Publishing of children's literature of the Central Committee of Komsomol 1937.
- ↑ Larionov L.V. The death of the “Mermaid” and its searches // EPRON. Collection of articles on ship lifting, diving and emergency rescue. Edition III-V. - L .: Red Banner Expedition of Underwater Works of the USSR, 1934. - P. 202.
- ↑ Chiker NP service task. - M .: Publishing house of DOSAAF, 1975 .-- S. 80. - 224 p.
- ↑ Goldman I. “The Mermaid”. - Construction, swimming, death and quest. - Tallinn: Eesti Raamat, 1978. - P. 52-53.
- ↑ Zolotovsky K. D. Fish blanket . - Leningrad: Children's Books, 1965. - S. 14 - 43.
- ↑ The Russian battleship “Mermaid” was found in the Gulf of Finland, mysteriously sunken in the century before last . IA REGNUM (07.25.2003). Treatment Date March 29, 2012. Archived March 29, 2012.
- ↑ Nikonov AA "Mermaid" was found! . // "Nature", No. 10, 2004. Date of treatment March 29, 2012. Archived March 29, 2012.
Links
- Armadillo "Mermaid" type Encyclopedia of ships. Treatment Date March 29, 2012. Archived March 29, 2012.
- Archive of photographs of the ships of the Russian and Soviet Navy: Tower armored boat "Mermaid" . Treatment Date March 29, 2012. Archived March 29, 2012.
- Chikin VO The mystery of the disappearance of "Mermaid" // "Nature", No. 4, 2004. Date of access March 29, 2012. Archived March 29, 2012.
- Nikonov A. A. "Mermaid" found! // "Nature", No. 10, 2004. Date of treatment March 29, 2012. Archived March 29, 2012.
- Russian civilization (photo)
- Paustovsky K. G. "The Black Sea"
- Scuba Diving Video - youtube.com