![]() Jeannette at Le Havre in 1878
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History | |
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Name | HMS Pandora |
Ordered | 8 April 1859 |
Builder | Pembroke Dockyard |
Laid down | 30 March 1860 |
Launched | 7 February 1861 |
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Name | USS Jeannette |
Namesake | Jeanette Gordon Bennett |
Expedition: | Jeannette expedition |
Departure: | 8 July 1879 |
Fate | Crushed in ice and sunk |
Date sunk: | 13 June 1881 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Philomel-class gunvessel |
Displacement | 570 long tons (579.1 metric tons) |
Tons burthen | 428 tons (bm) |
Length | 142 feet (43.3 meters) |
Beam | 24+1⁄3 feet (7.4 meters) |
Draft | 13 feet (4.0 meters) |
Sail plan | Bark-rigged |
Speed | ~10 knots (11.5 mph; 18.5 km/h) |
Complement | 60 officers and men |
USS Jeannette was a naval exploration vessel which, commanded by George W. De Long, undertook the Jeannette expedition of 1879–1881 to the Arctic. After being trapped in the ice and drifting for almost two years, the ship and her crew of 33 were released from the ice, then trapped again, crushed and sunk some 300 nautical miles (560 km; 350 mi) north of the Siberian coast. The entire crew survived the sinking, but eight died while sailing towards land in a small cutter. The others reached Siberia, but 12 subsequently perished in the Lena Delta, including De Long.
The vessel had begun her active career in 1861 as HMS Pandora, a Royal Navy gunboat. After more than a decade's service off the West African coast and in the Mediterranean, Pandora was retired from duty and sold as a private yacht to a British explorer, Allen Young. Young took her on two voyages to the Arctic, in 1875 and 1876, before selling her to James Gordon Bennett Jr., proprietor of the New York Herald, who changed her name to Jeannette. Although she sailed to the Arctic under the U.S. flag as USS Jeannette, subject to naval laws and discipline, Bennett remained responsible for the costs of the expedition.
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