Sailing, history and a cold wind

Leaving the Scottish coast behind. It's a horribly cold and windy evening. We've got the lights of Peterhead as company.

Tonight we were told the history and exciting future of Statsraad lehmkuhl.
First of all some background into the type of ship Statsraad eventually became.

In the late 1800s Norwegian school ships started to be set up. This didn't begin in Bergen. The aim of teaching people on these ships was primarily to improve the lives of young men.

Built in Bremmerhavn by an archduke who named it after himself.
She trained merchant seamen during first world war and was taken by Britain as a victory prize in 1920.
The following year Kristofer Lehmkuhl who was a cabinet minister (statsraad) bought her for a vey large sum of money. When bought, the ship was state of the art with a diesel engine. 90% of her steel is original.
School ship.
Renamed Westwarts & painted black in WW2.
Supported by another business man.
Did training in 1960s-70s. There is one guy on board with us who was one of the last boys on ship.
Late 1970, businessman went bankrupt but did not want the ship to be taken. So it was sold into the Statsraad Lehmkuhl foundation for 1 NOK.

She only sailed in the summer season. There was no fully employed crew until 2000s. When the Norwegian naval academy signed a contract for use of the ship 3 months every year. Recently Dutch Navy has signed a contract with statsraad foundation too.

Future is as important as the past.
One ocean expedition, was a vision from the director of the lehmkuhl foundation.
The scientific paper from the expedition will be published in the Autumn.

Future plan for expedition to Northwest passage in 2025.
After the talk, I asked Kristian if there was any more information about the next expedition and he explained the current plan which will be confirmed soon.
The ship will leave Bergen in April after the one ocean week, Travel to tromso, Svalbard then Nice for the one ocean conference. After that she will head North to Nuuk in Greenland, followed by Halifax in Canada. And then she will enter the Northwest Passage.

I was on buoy watch for the last hour of our watch period. It was really cold, but I'm glad I was at the most sheltered part of the ship.

The 2nd watch was still windy but bright. Although we did have rain in the first hour.

We are setting sails today. We have set the lower and upper topsails. Stump & most in Norsk. This involved work on the yards. So a number of trainees have been aloft in the rigging.
My job has involved the ropes on deck, releasing buntlines and hauling sheets.

In the last hour I was at the helm with Eirin from Norway. We chatted about school, sustainability, learning English and learning Norwegian. Her friend spoke better English but had learned it from watching the Kardashians.
We started with the course 035° and then the captain told us to adjust to 020° and finally to 025°.

P. S. I just ate the best cooked salmon ever, for tea tonight.Читать далее