 Torrent | |
| History | |
|---|---|
| Launched: | 1852 |
| Fate: | Wrecked 15 July 1868 |
| General characteristics | |
| Tonnage: | 576 tons |
| Length: | 50 m (160 ft) (approximate) |
Torrent was an American three-masted wooden sail ship that shipwrecked near the coast of Alaska on 15 July 1868. Torrent was built in Bath, Maine in 1852. It was made of wood, carried 576 tons, and likely measured 50 meters in length. The ship consisted of two decks.
In October 1867, the United States and Russia signed the Alaska Treaty with the US acquiring the territories now belonging to the state of the same name. To protect the American interests, the Army decided to construct a fort near the mouth of the Kenai River on Cook Inlet. The fort would complement the existing forts at Sitka and Kodiak.
Battery F of the Army's Second Infantry Division was chosen to man the fort, under the command of Lt. John McGilvray. Torrent was one of two sailing ships destined to carry the men of the Division, ammunition, supplies and building materials to the new fort at Cook Inlet. The transported goods were intended to last six months. A second ship, Milan, commanded by Captain Joseph Snow, would follow carrying 267,000 board feet (630 m3) of lumber and 300 tons of coal.
Torrent would be commanded by Captain Richard Carlton. The ship carried a crew of 15 men, five Army officers, 125 enlisted men, four laundresses, two servants, and 11 children. It finally set sail for Alaska on 11 June 1868.
Torrent sailed north for almost a month, reaching Kodiak Island on 7 July. The following day she headed to Cook Inlet through the Chugachnik Gulf (now known as Kachemak Bay). It is unclear why she followed this route since the orders were to proceed to the Russian settlement of St. Nicholas near the mouth of the Kenai River.
As the ship approached, lookouts were able to see Kenai and what is now called as Homer Spit. The next morning, Lt. McGilvray dispatched a small reconnaissance party in one of the ship's boats. Upon inspecting the terrain, McGilvray was convinced that it would be impossible to establish even a temporary post at that place.
After conferring with the captain and others knowledgeable about the area, McGilvray decided to establish a temporary fort at Port Graham, about 20 miles (32 km) south. Torrent set sail on the morning of 12 July, encountering a storm in the area. The storm was so strong that she returned to Kenai Harbor to wait until the next day. On 13 July, she set sail again, entering Cook Inlet. However, the storm covered them again as she made her way along the coastline. On 14 July, the men were able to see Port Graham at the distance and decided to wait until the next day to land.
On the morning of 15 July, the mate sailed Torrent to the harbor but couldn't avoid a long, rocky reef that extends from the shore about a 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km). With a strong current estimated at 7 knots (13 km/h; 8.1 mph), Torrent struck the reef hard. The strong current spun her 180 degrees, carrying her onto the rocks. The hull timbers broke and she began taking-on water.
Quickly, the passengers and crew headed to the ship's six lifeboats and abandoned the ship, without having time to salvage provisions or personal belongings. Shortly after, the ship sank. All of the passengers reached shore safely. An army officer and some of the sailors attempted to reach Fort Kodiak in one of the lifeboats, but were forced to return.
The castaways were rescued two weeks later by Captain Snow, of Milan, and by Captain Erskine, of the steamer Fidelater, who spotted the Torrent's floating in the sea.
The soldiers of Battery F spent the winter of 1868 to 1869 at Kodiak. They later arrived at the Russian settlement of St. Nicholas, aboard the steamer Constantine on 17 April 1869, finally establishing what would be Fort Kenai. The garrison would remain active for less than two years, when the Army headquarters ordered its abandonment in August 1870.
On 9 October 2007, it was announced that the remains of the ship had been found by a team led by Steve Lloyd. Divers found the wreckage off the south-central Alaska coast. It is believed to be the oldest American shipwreck ever found in Alaskan waters.
Discovered on the wreck were guns, cannons, shoes and plates, as well as brass, copper and bronze objects. Divers also located a toilet, two anchors, sections of hull and heavy bronze rudder hinges weighing at least 100 pounds (45 kg). One anchor measured 10 feet (3.0 m) tall with a stem 2+1⁄2 feet (0.76 m) in circumference. [1]
The Russian colonization of North America covers the period from 1732 to 1867, when the Russian Empire laid claim to northern Pacific Coast territories in the Americas. Russian colonial possessions in the Americas are collectively known as Russian America. Russian expansion eastward began in 1552, and in 1639 Russian explorers reached the Pacific Ocean. In 1725, Emperor Peter the Great ordered navigator Vitus Bering to explore the North Pacific for potential colonization. The Russians were primarily interested in the abundance of fur-bearing mammals on Alaska's coast, as stocks had been depleted by over hunting in Siberia. Bering's first voyage was foiled by thick fog and ice, but in 1741 a second voyage by Bering and Aleksei Chirikov made sight of the North American mainland.
Kenai is a city in the Kenai Peninsula Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is one hundred and eighty-seven miles south from Anchorage. The population was 7,100 as of the 2010 census, up from 6,942 in 2000.
Nanwalek, formerly Alexandrovsk and later English Bay, is a census-designated place (CDP) in the Kenai Peninsula Borough, Alaska, United States, that contains a traditional Alutiiq village. The population was 254 at the 2010 census, up from 177 in 2000. There is one school located in the community, attended by 76 students.
Cook Inlet stretches 180 miles (290 km) from the Gulf of Alaska to Anchorage in south-central Alaska. Cook Inlet branches into the Knik Arm and Turnagain Arm at its northern end, almost surrounding Anchorage. On its southern end, it merges with Shelikof Strait, Stevenson Entrance, Kennedy Entrance and Chugach Passage.
The first USS Saginaw was a sidewheel sloop-of-war in the United States Navy during the American Civil War. The ship was in operation throughout the 1860s, but in 1870 wrecked on what is now known as Kure Atoll, a Pacific island. The event produced several books and one of the surviving boats from the ship is in a museum.
Russian America was the name of the Russian colonial possessions in North America from 1799 to 1867. Its capital was Novo-Arkhangelsk, which is now Sitka. Settlements were mostly in Alaska but also spanned parts of what is now California, and also three forts in Hawaii. Formal incorporation of the possessions by Russia did not take place until the Ukase of 1799 which established a monopoly for the Russian-American Company and also granted the Russian Orthodox Church certain rights in the new possessions. Many of its possessions were abandoned in the 19th century. In 1867, Russia sold its last remaining possessions to the United States for $7.2 million.
The Farallon Steamship Disaster was the wreck of a wooden Alaska Steamship Company passenger liner, SS Farallon, that hit Black Reef in Cook Inlet in the Territory of Alaska on 5 January 1910. All on board evacuated to a nearby island, where most had to survive for a month in a mid-winter climate before they were rescued. Six other survivors survived an attempt to row across Shelikof Strait in search of rescue for the stranded men.
Cape Ugat is a rocky point on the northwestern side of Kodiak Island, Alaska. It is the tip of the Spiridon Peninsula and protrudes into the Shelikof Strait. It is the closest point on Kodiak Island to mainland Alaska. In World War II Cape Ugat was occupied by US forces as a lookout station, the rationale being that it was the best vantage point to detect potential Japanese naval forces that could head up the Shelikof Strait towards the Cook Inlet and Anchorage, the logistical center of Alaska.
Spanish expeditions to the Pacific Northwest were undertaken several times during the Age of Exploration. Spanish claims to the Pacific Northwest date to the papal bull of 1493, and the Treaty of Tordesillas signed in 1494. In 1513, this claim was reinforced by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the first European to sight the Pacific Ocean, when he claimed all lands adjoining this ocean for the Spanish Crown. Spain only started to colonize the claimed territory north of present-day Mexico in the 18th century, when it settled the northern coast of Las Californias.
Bishop Joasaph was a Russian Orthodox missionary, bishop of Kodiak, vicar of Irkutsk diocese.
The State of Alaska is both a producer and consumer of natural gas. In 2006, Alaska consumed 180.4 Bcf of natural gas.
USC&GS Carlile P. Patterson was a survey ship of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey in operation between 1883 and 1918. Subsequently, she had a brief period of naval service and fifteen seasons as a merchant vessel before she was wrecked on the Alaska coast in 1938.
USC&GS Yukon was a schooner that served as a survey ship in the United States Coast Survey from 1873 to 1878 and in its successor agency, the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, from 1878 to 1894. She was the pioneering Coast Survey ship in many of the waters of the Territory of Alaska, including the Bering Sea and the western Aleutian Islands, and she also operated extensively in California and Washington. She later entered commercial service as Elwood and was wrecked in 1895.
USCGC Citrus (WAGL-300/WLB-300/WMEC-300) was a Cactus (A)-class seagoing buoy tender built in 1942 in Duluth, Minnesota, and now operated by the navy of the Dominican Republic.
Evstratii Ivanovich Delarov was a Greek-born mariner who served with several Russian maritime fur trade companies in Russian America. He was born in Ottoman Macedonia. He was the first documented Greek explorer and merchant to arrive in Alaska.
USRC Wayanda was a Pawtuxet-class screw steam revenue cutter built for the United States Revenue Cutter Service during the American Civil War.
SS Aleutian was a passenger ship in North American coastal service. Built in 1899 for the Ward Line as SS Havana, she would later serve the building of the Panama Canal as SS Panama and ultimately enter Alaskan service as SS Aleutian.
Fort Nikolaevskaia or Fort St. Nicholas, also called Nikolaevskii Redoubt, was a fur trading post founded by the Lebedev-Lastochkin Company (LLC) in Alaska, the first European settlement on the Alaskan mainland. It is located on the site of modern Kenai. It was one of several posts maintained by the company on Cook Inlet. With the creation of a monopoly in Russian America around the Russian-American Company in 1799, the station continued operations until the Alaska Purchase.
Ancon was an ocean-going wooden sidewheel steamship built in San Francisco in 1867. She carried both passengers and freight. In her early career she was a ferry in Panama and then ran between Panama and San Francisco. Later she began coastal runs between Sand Diego and San Francisco. Her last route was Port Townsend, Washington to Alaska. Today she is more notable for her disasters than her routine voyages. Ancon Rock in Icy Strait, Alaska is the site of her 1886 grounding. Her final wreck, in 1889 in Naha Bay, near Loring, Alaska was commemorated by Albert Bierstadt. His painting, "Wreck of the 'Ancon' in Loring Bay, Alaska" now hangs in the Museum of Fine Art in Boston.
The USS YP-73 (ex-Corsair) was a converted fishing vessel which served as an auxiliary patrol boat in the U.S. Navy during World War II.
