ST PETER or SV PYOTR

[aukepalmhof]

Built as a wooden brig rigged vessel by the local craftsman Andrei Kuzmin (also given as Andrey Kozmin) in Okhotsk for the Imperial Russian Government.
29 June 1740 launched.
Tonnage 360 ton. Dim. 24.2 6.9 x 3.7m.
Armament 14 guns.
Crew 76.
1740 completed, under the name ST PETER (SVIATOI PETR),
the building of the ship took over four years.

1739 Ivan Yelagin was sent by Bering to the east coast of Kamchatka to build a base with houses and supply depot at Avacha Bay, later named Petropavlovsk, in honor of the two ships

During the autumn of 1740 the ST PETER under command of Vitus Bering and ST PAUL (SVIATOI PAVEL) a sister ship sailed from Okhotsk and arrived in October in Avacha Bay, where they wintered.
From there Bering led an expedition towards America in 1741. On 4 June 1741 Bering sailed from Kamchatka aboard the St. PETER with Lieutenant Aleksey Chirikov commanding the St. PAUL. First the two captains headed southeast in search of the mythical da Gama Land, which was a prominent feature on an earlier map. Unfortunately, by the time Bering had altered his direction to the northeast, they had sailed hundreds of miles south while missing the entire Aleutian chain.
Meanwhile, on 20 June the two vessels lost each other in heavy fog and were separated. On 15 July 1741 Chirikov sighted the western coast of Prince of Wales Island. Chirikov sent men ashore, but they were never seen again. On 26 July Chirikov wrote that he and his men spotted "some very high mountains, their summits covered in snow, their lower slopes, we thought, covered in trees. This we thought must be America." Chirikov made it to what is now Sitka harbor and was able to sight natives in that area. But unable to go ashore Chirikov decided to return to Russia, unaware of the fate of Bering and his ship, and reached Petropavlovsk in October.
After the separation Bering reached an island in the Alexander Archipelago, probably Prince of Wales Island, near Alaska's southeast coast. A naturalist and physician of German origin named Georg Wilhelm Steller, was recorded as the first European to step on Alaskan soil. As he later complained, it took him ten years to get to this new continent and he was only given ten hours to study it, as Bering was hurrying north while mapping the coastline. Anxious to get the ship back to safety, Bering was able to reconnoiter only the southwestern coast of Alaska Bay, the Alaskan Peninsula, and the Aleutian Islands. Catching sight of a volcanic peak, he named it Mount St. Elias, the name it still bears today. One of the sailors died and was buried on an island that was later named after him (Shumagin Island). With supplies running low, Bering decided on 10 August not to spend the winter in America, but to head back west.
Blown off course by fierce winter storms and with a crew so seriously afflicted by scurvy that only three men were able to work on deck, the St. PETER finally sailed within sight of land on 4 November 1741. With their sails and rigging already splitting apart from repeated storms, the exhausted crew so wanted this to be Kamchatka that many thought that they spotted the landmarks of the peninsula from which they had sailed over a year before. The ship was hurled up on the only stretch of beach along a coastline otherwise dominated by rocky cliffs.
Steller was sent ashore to gather plants that could be used to combat the scurvy. He soon deduced that the land they were anchored off was not Kamchatka as the local animals had no fear of man, indicating they must have never seen them before. Steller returned to the ship and quietly told his dying and bedridden captain what he suspected. This could not be Kamchatka and they must have blundered across an undiscovered island. Bering, not wishing to disappoint his men, took the news calmly and said simply, "It's too late to save our ship. God save the longboat!"
The crew spent the winter on the island, living in driftwood huts that were dug into the sand. Thirty men succumbed to scurvy and starvation on the island. Among them was the expedition leader, who died on 19 December.
The only surviving carpenter on the ship, Savva Starodubtsev, with the help of the crew managed to build a smaller vessel out of the wreckage. The new vessel had a keel length of only 12.2 meters (40 feet) and was also named St. PETER. It remained in service for 12 years, sailing between Kamchatka and Okhotsk until 1755. Starodubtsev returned home with governmental awards and later built several other seaworthy ships.
The crew had the additional fortune to discover and capture an enormous manatee-like peaceful animal that placidly grazed on seaweed off of the coast. Its meat, unlike that of the foxes, sea otters, fur seals and two rotten whales that they had eaten - was delicious. The sailors christened the enormous animals "sea cows," partly to distinguish them from the fish-eating fur seals (which Russians colloquially called "sea bears"), and partly in recognition of their cow-like character. Later the creatures were named Steller's cows after Georg Steller and became extinct within decades. In the end, it was the sea cows' vast quantities of meat and the relatively easy capture of these animals that fueled the efforts to build a new ship.
On 14 August 1742, the surviving crew set sail from the shores of what would later be called Bering Island and headed to Kamchatka. On 26 August 1742 they landed in Petropavlovsk, more than two years after they had set out on their voyage of discovery. Out of the 77 men aboard the St. PETER, only 46 survived the hardships of the expedition, which claimed its last victim just one day before arriving at the home port. They spent the winter in Petropavlovsk and arrived in Okhotsk the next year, much to the surprise of the local residents, who had given up hope of seeing the expedition again, and had sold off the belongings of the expedition members.
Denmark 1941 10/40 ore sg324/6, scott277/79. Grenada 1991 5c sg 2222, scott1951. Grenadines of St Vincent 1988 15c sg564, scott596. Russia 1943 60k, 2r sg1019, 1021, scott886/89. 1956 40k sg2047, scott905. 1966 1k sg 3370, scott3281. 1991 30k sg6275, scott6019.

From: http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-rus ... us-bering/

[aukepalmhof]

Bulgaria 2020 0.65 leva sg? , scott? and MS