The megayacht Black Pearl

1 October 2019 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Design & Products, Tall ships, Superyachts, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  11 minutes

© Berthold Neutze

© Berthold Neutze

Black Pearl is a sailing yacht launched in 2016, which is 106.7 meters (350.1 ft) in length. It has three DynaRig masts supporting a sail area of 2,900 square meters (31,215 sq ft). The yacht was known during its build process originally as Oceanco Y712 and thereafter as “Project Solar”. The hull is steel, the superstructure aluminum, and the masts carbon fiber.   read more…

The Preussen

1 September 2019 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Tall ships, Hamburg, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  12 minutes

Deutsches Museum in München - Fünfmast-Vollschiff Preußen Modell © Mattes

Deutsches Museum in München – Fünfmast-Vollschiff Preußen Modell © Mattes

Preußen (usually Preussen in English) was a German steel-hulled five-masted ship-rigged windjammer built in 1902 for the F. Laeisz shipping company and named after the German state and kingdom of Prussia. It was the world’s only ship of this class with five masts carrying six square sails on each mast. Until the 2000 launch of the Royal Clipper, a sail cruise liner, she was the only five-masted full-rigged ship ever built. Her homeport was Hamburg.   read more…

The brig-sloop HMS Beagle

1 August 2019 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Tall ships, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  19 minutes

HMS Beagle Replica in 2017 in Punta Arenas © S p-hunter/cc-by-sa-4.0

HMS Beagle Replica in 2017 in Punta Arenas © S p-hunter/cc-by-sa-4.0

HMS Beagle was a Cherokee-class 10-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, one of more than 100 ships of this class. The vessel, constructed at a cost of £7,803 (£613,000 in today’s currency), was launched on 11 May 1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on the River Thames. In July of that year she took part in a fleet review celebrating the coronation of King George IV of the United Kingdom, and for that occasion is said to have been the first ship to sail completely under the old London Bridge. There was no immediate need for Beagle so she “lay in ordinary“, moored afloat but without masts or rigging. She was then adapted as a survey barque and took part in three survey expeditions.   read more…

The barquentine Peacemaker

1 July 2019 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Tall ships, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  6 minutes

© Yat12t/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Yat12t/cc-by-sa-3.0

Peacemaker is an American barquentine owned by the Twelve Tribes religious group. Her homeport is Brunswick in Georgia. Peacemaker is used to travel between the communities of the Twelve Tribes while providing an apprenticeship program for their youth in sailing, seamanship, navigation, and boat maintenance. The ship has a United States Coast Guard attraction vessel permit and is available for festivals and dockside hospitality events.   read more…

The Galleon Vasa

1 January 2019 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Tall ships, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  14 minutes

© flickr.com - Jorge Láscar/cc-by-2.0

© flickr.com – Jorge Láscar/cc-by-2.0

Vasa is a retired Swedish warship built between 1626 and 1628. The ship foundered after sailing about 1,300 m (1,400 yd) into its maiden voyage on 10 August 1628. It fell into obscurity after most of her valuable bronze cannons were salvaged in the 17th century until she was located again in the late 1950s in a busy shipping lane just outside the Stockholm harbor. Salvaged with a largely intact hull in 1961, it was housed in a temporary museum called Wasavarvet (‘The Wasa Shipyard’) until 1988 and then moved permanently to the Vasa Museum in the Royal National City Park in Stockholm. The ship is one of Sweden’s most popular tourist attractions and has been seen by over 35 million visitors since 1961. Since her recovery, Vasa has become a widely recognised symbol of the Swedish ‘great power period‘ and is today a de facto standard in the media and among Swedes for evaluating the historical importance of shipwrecks.   read more…

The museum ship Amsterdam

1 August 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Tall ships, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  10 minutes

© Malis

© Malis

The Amsterdam was an 18th-century cargo ship of the Dutch East India Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie; VOC). The ship started its maiden voyage from Texel to Batavia on 8 January 1749, but was wrecked in a storm on the English Channel on 26 January 1749. The shipwreck was discovered in 1969 in the bay of Bulverhythe, United Kingdom, and is sometimes visible during low tides. The wreck site is protected under the Protection of Wrecks Act since 1974.   read more…

The sail training ship Irving Johnson

1 July 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Greater Los Angeles Area, Tall ships, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  10 minutes

2010 Festival of Sail © flickr.com - Port of San Diego/cc-by-2.0

2010 Festival of Sail © flickr.com – Port of San Diego/cc-by-2.0

The twin brigantines Irving Johnson and Exy Johnson are the flagships of the Los Angeles Maritime Institute‘s (LAMI) TopSail Youth Program, a non-profit organization that helps at-risk youth learn discipline and teamwork through sailing. They join LAMI’s topsail schooners the Swift of Ipswich and the Bill of Rights. The boats are named for sail training pioneers Irving and Electa “Exy” Johnson. The brigantines are based on original plans designed in the 1930s by Henry Gruber but never built. Noted yacht designer W.I.B. Crealock was brought in to adapt the plans to meet modern Coast Guard regulations and to fit LAMI’s own stringent specifications based on their years of trial and experience. Master shipbuilder Allan Rawl was retained to oversee the project.   read more…

The museum ship Nippon Maru

1 June 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Tall ships, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  5 minutes

Nippon Maru Memorial Park © Captain76/cc-by-sa-3.0

Nippon Maru Memorial Park © Captain76/cc-by-sa-3.0

Nippon Maru is a Japanese museum ship and former training vessel. She is permanently docked in Yokohama harbor, in Nippon Maru Memorial Park. She was built by Kawasaki Shipbuilding Corporation in Kobe, and was launched on 27 January 1930 alongside her sister ship Kaiwo Maru.   read more…

The museum ship Falls of Clyde

1 May 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Tall ships, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  15 minutes

© Alexandre/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Alexandre/cc-by-sa-3.0

Falls of Clyde is the last surviving iron-hulled, four-masted full-rigged ship, and the only remaining sail-driven oil tanker. Designated a U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1973, and National Historic Landmark in 1989, she is now a museum ship in Honolulu, but her condition has deteriorated. She is currently not open to the public. In September 2008, ownership was transferred to a new nonprofit organization, the Friends of Falls of Clyde, which intends to restore her. Efforts to raise $1.5 million to get the ship into drydock have not succeeded as of 2015. An additional $30 million may be needed to fully restore the ship. Falls of Clyde was built in 1878 by Russell and Company in Port Glasgow in Scotland, launched as the first of nine iron-hulled four-masted ships for Wright and Breakenridge’s Falls Line. She was named after the Falls of Clyde, a group of waterfalls on the River Clyde, and built to the highest standard for general worldwide trade, Lloyd’s Register A-1. Her maiden voyage took her to Karachi, now in Pakistan, and her first six years were spent engaged in the India trade. She then became a tramp pursuing general cargo such as lumber, jute, cement, and wheat from ports in Australia, California, India, New Zealand, and the British Isles.   read more…

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