Gangut Battleship, 1894

Battleship Gangut, 1894
Gangut was an Imperial Russian coast defense ship named after the Battle of Gangut. The ship was designed as a smaller version of the Imperator Aleksandr II class battleship on the instruction of Navy Minister Ivan Shestakov. The aim was to have a cheaper vessel able to operate in shallow water in the Baltic Sea with deployemnet to the Mediterranean and even the Far East. The specification was issued in 1887 and the design was approved by the Marine Technical Committee in 1888.
She sank on June 12, 1897 during a military exercise after hitting an uncharted pinnacle of rock near Vyborg in the Gulf of Finland in 30m water depth. There were no fatalities. A gash along the ships bottom led to both boiler rooms flooding and a loss of power to her pumps. Drawbacks in the construction resulted in insufficient floodability and damage stability. The bulkheads were poorly rivited leading to leaks. The ship settled and sank slowly on an even keel.