The Commander-in-Chief, East Indies and China was a formation of the Royal Navy from 1831 to 1865. Its naval area of responsibility was the Indian Ocean and the coasts of China and its navigable rivers. The Commander-in-Chief was appointed in 1831; the appointment ceased to exist when it was separated into the East Indies Station and the China Station in 1865. In August 1855, during the Crimean War, Winchester and Barracouta entered and first charted the waters of Peter the Great Gulf, while searching for the Russian squadron commanded by Vasily Zavoyko.