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After a summer break, a small informal meeting of HSR members took place on 3rd September. The Society member captain of the 1st rank (ret.) Aleksandr Gruzdev made a short report on preparation and carrying out of an expedition to search the remains of the Russian armoured cruiser Ryurik. This was sunk a hundred years ago in the Korea Strait during fighting between a Russian squadron of cruisers under the command of rear-admiral K.P. Iessen and a Japanese squadron under vice-admiral H. Kamimura.
The expedition took place from 9th to 27th July 2004 on the yacht Iskra from Vladivostok. The yacht was equipped with towed side-scan sonar, vertical-scan sonar, an echo sounder and GPS. The chief of expedition was rear-admiral (ret.) N.G. Moskalev and the captain of yacht was Mr V.A. Kartashov. Members of the expedition also were scientists from the Institute of Sea Technology (Vladivostok) V. Zolotarev and V. Evtushenko.
The expedition was carried out with support of the Pacific fleet of the Russian Navy (Commander-in-Chief Admiral V. D. Feodorov), the Far East State Technical University (Rector Professor G.P. Turumov) and the Institute of Sea Technology. Support for the expedition was also provided by the General Consulate for the Republic of Korea and the General Consulate for Japan in Vladivostok.
A. Gruzdev told the meeting that the exact location of the wreck of the cruiser was not known. Therefore prior to the beginning of expedition it had been necessary to perform certain research work, studying archival materials to outline at least an approximate area of search. This work was executed by admiral (ret.) Jamadzaki Makoto in the National archive of National safety of Japan and by captain of the 1st rank (ret.) A. Gruzdev in the Russian State archive of the Navy. As a result, four areas had been determined as search places for the wreck of the cruiser Ryurik.
The search has been carried out in all these areas, but in only one of them were some objects revealed. During inspection of this area under ideal weather conditions on 22nd to 23rd July the site of the object assumed to be the sunken cruiser Ryurik was determined. Coordinates of this place are the following: 35° 17´ 8N and 130° 11´ 9E. The object lies at a depth of 136 metres in a direction 60-240°. Its length is 100 metres, width is 15 metres and height above ground is 8 metres. It appeared that the object is situated only 0,3 mile from the place of Ryurik’s destruction, registered by vice-admiral Kamimura in his Operations Journal in 1904.
Unfortunately, the absence of an opportunity to take photographs or a video of the found object does not allow any present certainty that this is indeed the wreck of the Ryurik. Therefore the realised expedition can be considered only as the first most laborious phase – search and classification of object. The following phase should be its visual inspection.
The report was listened to with great interest. Participants asked A. Gruzdev to inform them about results of the following phase when executed.
Contact
Hydrographic Society Russia (HSR)
Att. Viktor Rybine
Kozhevennaja linija 41
Saint-Petersburg 199106
Russia
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