Prince of Sweden arrives in Helsinki on historic sailing ship Götheborg
|
|
|
Thousands of onlookers had gathered in Helsinki’s Eteläsatama (South Harbour) on Sunday evening to welcome the historic Swedish East India vessel Götheborg come in, with guns firing a salute in the background to solemnise the occasion.
The celebrations that the vessel’s arrival mark are due to last until next weekend, when the ship is meant to sail to the former fortress island of Suomenlinna, just off the coast of Helsinki.
The Swedish Prince Carl Philip joined the Götheborg crew for the very last leg of the ship’s journey, by boarding the ship together with a pilot near the Harmaja lighthouse. As guest of honour, the Prince was first to step off the ship in the harbour.
“This is a good start for the various happenings on this anniversary year”, Carl Philip said on the ship, referring to the 1808-1809 war between Sweden and Russia and the separation of Finland from Sweden.
The Prince’s entourage included the Stockholm Governor Per Unckell and Sweden’s Minister for Employment Sven-Otto Littorin.
What the honourable guests missed was the brisk south-westerly wind in the Gulf of Finland earlier in the afternoon that kept the Götheborg crew reasonably busy. “We’re travelling far too fast”, yelled boatswain Björn Ahlander and ordered the men to reef and lower the sails. The vessel's rapid progress threatened to play havoc with schedules, causing the ship to arrive seriously ahead of time in Helsinki.
Sailors climbed up masts that were humming in the wind and took down the sails apart from the bow topsail. In the end that too was reefed and after a day of sailing the ship had to resort to using its auxiliary engines.
To a landlubber, the sailors labouring away in the swaying masts looked decidedly scary, but everything went well.
“Especially considering that many of them had no previous sailing experience”, said Erik Bladh, one of the senior sailors supervising the work.
At the Suomenlinna fortress island, two Swedish sailing school vessels and a number of historic Finnish ships joined Götheborg, and all the vessels arrived in Eteläsatama as a parade.
TheGötheburg is a carefully-built replica of an East Indiaman that sank in 1745, and she was launched in 2003.
The 41-metre vessel has a crew of eighty, 50 of whom are sail trainees.
She is currently on a Baltic Sea Tour that will take her to several ports in Sweden, Finland, and Estonia.
The celebrations that the vessel’s arrival mark are due to last until next weekend, when the ship is meant to sail to the former fortress island of Suomenlinna, just off the coast of Helsinki.
The Swedish Prince Carl Philip joined the Götheborg crew for the very last leg of the ship’s journey, by boarding the ship together with a pilot near the Harmaja lighthouse. As guest of honour, the Prince was first to step off the ship in the harbour.
“This is a good start for the various happenings on this anniversary year”, Carl Philip said on the ship, referring to the 1808-1809 war between Sweden and Russia and the separation of Finland from Sweden.
The Prince’s entourage included the Stockholm Governor Per Unckell and Sweden’s Minister for Employment Sven-Otto Littorin.
What the honourable guests missed was the brisk south-westerly wind in the Gulf of Finland earlier in the afternoon that kept the Götheborg crew reasonably busy. “We’re travelling far too fast”, yelled boatswain Björn Ahlander and ordered the men to reef and lower the sails. The vessel's rapid progress threatened to play havoc with schedules, causing the ship to arrive seriously ahead of time in Helsinki.
Sailors climbed up masts that were humming in the wind and took down the sails apart from the bow topsail. In the end that too was reefed and after a day of sailing the ship had to resort to using its auxiliary engines.
To a landlubber, the sailors labouring away in the swaying masts looked decidedly scary, but everything went well.
“Especially considering that many of them had no previous sailing experience”, said Erik Bladh, one of the senior sailors supervising the work.
At the Suomenlinna fortress island, two Swedish sailing school vessels and a number of historic Finnish ships joined Götheborg, and all the vessels arrived in Eteläsatama as a parade.
The
The 41-metre vessel has a crew of eighty, 50 of whom are sail trainees.
She is currently on a Baltic Sea Tour that will take her to several ports in Sweden, Finland, and Estonia.
Helsingin Sanomat