Neva was the British merchant ship Thames, launched in 1801, that the Russians bought in 1803, and renamed Neva. She participated in two trips to the Far East, the first of which was the first Russian circumnavigation of the world. She was wrecked in January 1813.
Thames
Thames was a 200 ft-long, three-masted sailing ship of 370 tons burthen, built in Britain in 1801.
Russian career
In 1802, Imperial Russian Navy officer Yuri Lisyansky travelled to England where he bought two vessels, Thames and Leander, on his own account. Both ships left England for the Baltic in May 1803, docking at Kronstadt on 5 June.[1] Czar Alexander I renamed Thames to Neva, after the river, and Leander to Nadezhda ("Hope"). The two vessels sailed in 1803 on a voyage that would become the first Russian circumnavigation of the world. For the voyage Neva carried 14 cannon and a crew of 43 men under Lisyansky's command. The commander of the expedition was Admiral Ivan Fyodorovich Kruzenstern, in Nadezhda.[2]