The 1773 Phipps expedition towards the North Pole was a British Royal Navy expedition suggested by the Royal Society and especially its vice president Daines Barrington, who believed in an ice-free Open Polar Sea. Two bomb vessels, HMS Racehorse and HMS Carcass, were modified for greater protection against ice and sailed towards the North Pole in the summer of 1773 under the commands of Constantine John Phipps and Skeffington Lutwidge. The ships became stuck in ice near Svalbard. The report of the journey, published by Phipps in 1774, contained the first scientific descriptions of the polar bear and the ivory gull.