The HOPE was in the Arctic, searching for Russian vessel EIRA. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sailed on the HOPE in 1880 as ship’s surgeon, aged 20. The SS HOPE was a whaling vessel

Administrative / biographical background
The steamship HOPE arrived at Peterhead on 19 August 1882 under the command of Sir Allen Young, C.B, with Lieutenants Swire, Caseman and Bairnsfather of the Royal Navy. On board her where the crew of the Arctic explorer EIRA and Mr Leigh Smith, who had all been missing for one year. The HOPE had been chartered by the EIRA Relief Committee with the purpose of finding the EIRA's crew and bringing them home. According to a telegram sent by Mr. Leigh Smith after his rescue, the EIRA had steamed north through pack ice on 13 July 1881 and had sighted Franz Joseph Land (Zemlya Frantsa Iosifa) on 27 July. Their vessel proceeded towards Cape Ludlow and reached the Nightingale Sound on 2 August. They put up a storehouse at a place named Eira Harbour, presumably after their own ship. On 16 August they looked for the Jeanette but could not get past Berents Hook.On 21 August 1881, the EIRA was trapped between the land and the pack-ice and sank before they could get many stores off, one mile east of Cape Flora. The party built a hut on Cape Flora and wintered there. They killed 29 walrus and 36 bears for food and did not get scurvy. On 21 June 1882 they left Franz Joseph land in two whale boats and two walrus boats and sailed 80 miles south without meeting any ice. They reached the Matochkin Straits, Nova Zembla and were found there by the HOPE on 3 August 1882. Lloyds register for 1882 reveals the HOPE as a whaling ship of 452 tons gross built in Aberdeen in 1873 and owned by R. Kidd. Her home port was Peterhead.