Name Dispatch Laid down May 1795 | Ordered 18 March 1795 Launched 15 December 1795 | |
Builder Samuel Nicholson, Chatham Fate Sold late 1795 or early 1796 | ||
Dispatch was an 18-gun, Albatross-class brig-sloop, launched in 1795 and intended for the British Royal Navy, but sold to the Imperial Russian Navy before commissioning. Between 1796 and 1805 she served in the North Sea and the Baltic. She was wrecked in 1805.
Contents
Origins
Vice-Admiral Khanykov reported to St Petersburg, in a dispatch discussed there on 16 May [O.S. 5 May] 1796, that he had purchased Dispatch at the behest of Catherine the Great, and that she was being fitted out and would be handed over to Russia.
Dispatch was transferred to Russia under an Admiralty Order dated 28 January 1796. She apparently was at Chatham on 27 February [O.S. 16 February], in company with two Russian ships of the line, suggesting that she was already under the Russian flag. However, British records show that she was struck from the Navy List and handed over at Chatham to the Russian Navy in March.
Russian naval service
Dispatch left Britain for Russia on 5 October [O.S. 24 September] 1796, with the Russian fleet. Between 1796 and 1797, Dispatch served with the squadrons of Vice-Admiral Pyotr Khanykov and Vice-Admiral Mikhail Makarov, cruising between Copenhagen and England. In May 1797 she sailed with Makarov's First Division from Kronstadt, arriving in Britain in July.
Between 1798 and 1800 Makarov's Division operated in the North Sea and off the Texel. Initially, she served primarily as an advice boat, carrying messages between flagships. Later, she patrolled in the North Sea. On 27 June [O.S. 16 June] 1800 she left for Russia.
Then in 1801, Dispatch carried a courier to Britain. She spent 1802-03 cruising in the Baltic, and in 1805 escorted transports to Germany.
Fate
Dispatch was wrecked off Rügen on 18 October [O.S. 5 October] 1805 during a storm. No lives were lost.