NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Mid XIX century Nav
From: Alexandre Eremenko
Date: 2005 Nov 21, 00:14 -0500
From: Alexandre Eremenko
Date: 2005 Nov 21, 00:14 -0500
The end of this Russian expedition reminds Homer's poems:-) The war with European powers began... And the frigate was unfit for the continuation of the voyage. (One mast cracked, another was about to fall). They reached Russian far East where the frigate was "disarmed" and abandonned. The admiral with a part of the crew moved to another frigate...and they went to Japan again to continue negotiations. This second frigate, Diana, was ... destroyed by a tsunami while in a Japanese harbor! (The city was viped out too, with hundreds dead). But only one crew member (of 400) was killed. With the help of the Japanese, the crew build a schooner, on which a part of them "returned" to the Russian Far East and sailed up Amur river. Sailing up Amur river turned out to be the hardest part... they nearly died of starvation (these parts of Russia are not populated to this day). The other part of the crew managed to hire an American ship, but after a short sailing they were taken prisoners by the British (This was the time of the Crimean war). The British however decided to treat them as shipwrecked, rather than prisoners, helped them and let them free. Alex. On Sun, 20 Nov 2005, Herbert Prinz wrote: > Alexandre E Eremenko wrote: > > >When approaching Shanghai, they had to send a small schooner > >ahead "to find out the news from Europe". They worried whether Russia is > >not by chance in the state of war with some European power, in which case > >they could have troubles in Shanghai:-) The schooner brought newspapers, > >but the news from Europe were 6 months old! > > > > > These were truly interesting times. R. Dana narrates a similar story > that happened in 1835 on his voyage ("Two Years Before the Mast") . They > were at anchor in Santa Barbara when a ship arriving from some other > Californian harbor brought "news" that the U.S. was at war with France > or at least war had been threatened over the settlement of some debts. > The crew of that ship reported that just as they were leaving harbor, a > large French frigate and the American frigate Brandywine, which happened > to be lying there, were going out to have a battle and the English > frigate Blonde was to be umpire, and see fair play. > > Two months later, news were received about an amicable arrangement > between the two nations. > > Herbert Prinz >