2-981-750 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Launch of the Russian circular ironclad Admiral Popoff, 1876. '...the launch of the Admiral Popoff...took place...at the port of Nicolaieff, which is situated on the river Bug, , and is now the great naval station of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The vessel, in so far as the hull is concerned, was completely built and armour-plated, and also sheathed with wood sheathing over the whole bottom, and covered with copper sheets, before the launch took place...The Admiral Popoff is to be completed with all possible dispatch...the launching of a body 120 feet broad, and drawing between nine and ten feet of water, even when light, into a comparatively narrow river like the Ingul--for the dockyard of Nicolaieff stands upon the last bend of the Ingul before it empties itself into the Bug-produced a great disturbance of the water and drove much of it away from the shore in the immediate vicinity of the launch'. From "Illustrated London News", 1876.