The Bering party had by April 1742,…

The Bering party had by April 1742, ascertained that they were on an island, and decided to construct a new vessel from the remnants of the ship in order to return home.

It is ready by August, and successfully reaches Avacha Bay later in the month.

Here, the party  discovered that Chirikov had led a rescue mission during 1741 that had come within miles of the stranded group.

Only forty-six o of seventy-seven men aboard Saint Peter have survived the hardships of the expedition, which claims its last victim just one day before coming into home port.

Its builder, Starodubtsev, returns home with government awards and will later build several other seaworthy ships.

Bering was neither the first Russian to sight North America (that having been completed by Gvozdev during the 1730s), nor the first Russian to pass through the strait which now bears his name (an honor that goes to the relatively unknown seventeenth century expedition of Semyon Dezhnev).

Reports from his second voyage will be jealously guarded by the Russian administration, preventing Bering's story from being retold in full for at least a century after his death.

Bering's achievements, both as an individual explorer and as a leader of the second expedition are regarded as substantial nonetheless.

Asa consequnce, Bering's name has since been used for the Bering Strait (named by Captain James Cook despite knowledge of Dezhnev's earlier expedition), the Bering Sea, Bering Island, Bering Glacier and the Bering Land Bridge.