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Asgard II sinks in the Bay of Biscay.

Published September 13, 2008 in Sinking, sailing ships, training, wrecks, Ireland, Navigation, Maritime and Irish. 8 Comments

Asgard
the entry in my Discharge book from AsgardII

I read on the internet that the Irish Sail Training Vessel Asgard II sunk on the 11th of September 2008, in the Bay of Biscay. I was deeply saddened to learn of this event, not only because I had done a stint as a trainee on her 17 years ago this November coming, but I have also many dear friends who are closely associated with Asgard II. There are plenty of people who are experts about sailing and tall ships, I am not. I just had one of those lifetime experiences back in 1991 sailing a real tall ship.

I joined her with a gang of trainees in Dublin, and we were to do a trip across to the Isle of Man then on to Wales and back to Dublin. There was plenty of wind so getting under sail wasn’t an issue. One of the first things we had to do after being allocated our bunks and muster stations was to go “up and over” meaning climbing up the rigging to the top of the mast and down the other side. It wasn’t so hard, the ship was alongside and still, I climbed up the first set of ratlines, then you had to reach backwards and climb up the second set, and finally the same for the third set to get to the top of the mast, then climb over and down the other side. I think everyone made it. A few grey faces but no casualties or cases of vertigo. Then we learned the orders for “sheets and tacks”. After a few hours of getting lessons and being divided into port and starboard watches, we sailed from Dublin.

The weather was shite, and before long half the trainees were vomiting over the side, one guy was being washed over with sea and just puking all the time as we rolled and pitched in the Irish sea with the stink of sweat, diesel and boiled cabbage coming from below. The skipper didn’t seem too worried and we had nearly all the sails out. We got to Port St. Mary in the Isle of Man and moored, the weather got worse and we had to put out extra moorings, we still managed to pull a couple of fairleads from their mountings. After a rough night alingside we had a fairly pleasant morning, and we sailed to Douglas, on the way the Bosun wanted 2 volunteers to “go aloft” and strike a sail, I was quick off the mark and he pulled me aside and dug his hard fingers into my shoulder and said “If you think you can’t make it, climb down, no one will think less of you” So I started climbing, about half way up I felt my legs turning to lead and my head started spinning and I thought “fuck this” and was about to climb down when I saw one of the girls climbing up fast as you like blonde curly hair blowing in the wind and right behind me, I would have had to climb over her to get down, valour got the better of discretion and I bit my tongue hard between my back teeth until I could taste blood, and up I went like a monkey, there was no way I was going to look a gobshite in front of the assembled ranks on the decks below even though the ship was rolling and I could see blue water below me half the time. Later back on deck when the adrenaline had faded the bosun gave me a nod, and said “you were thinking about backing?” I nodded he smiled and said “that’s why I sent up blondie!”

On the way back from Wales we had some of the worst weather that had been experienced on the Irish Sea in decades, we were rolling and pitching and the seas were huge piling up behind as we cork screwed across the sea. I wasn’t so scared because I was soaked and puking in between getting salty waves across my face, so I just wanted to die. Finally we got to Dublin. In the end I didn’t want to get off.

17 years ago. The memory is still as fresh as if it was yesterday, the experience of a lifetime. Unforgettable.

Asgard II what a loss.

Mircea

Published September 6, 2008 in sailing ships, training, ship spotting, photos, Maritime and From the ship. 0 Comments

The Barque Mircea, seen in the Mediterranean the other day. She was motoring as can be seen by the lack of canvas and most likely heading for her home port of Constanta, Romania. Not looking too bad for a 70 year old ship too. Built in 1938 at the famous or notorious Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, she is the sister ship (among others) of the Nazi Kreigsmarines Gorch Fock built 1933 and taken by the Soviets after WW2, the Soviets even took Mircea for a while after WW2 but returned it to the Romanian Navy.
Source; Wikipedia which doesn’t cite any sources, but I know a few guys from Constanta who were able to tell me about her.
Mircea Homepage in Romanian
Romanian Navy Homepage
Romanian isn’t a far stretch from Italian, and is a Latin language so deciphering the homepages isn’t entirely impossible.

Hoist the mainsail

Published January 27, 2008 in ship spotting, sailing ships, photos, Ireland, Dodgy ships and On the ship. 0 Comments

I witnessed a rare event when I saw the boys on the Adrianople from Limassol doing a lifeboat drill while alongside in Foynes, Co. Limerick. The rarity of the event was the state of her lifeboat, from what I can see in the picture it doesn’t have a motor. So in 2008 there are ships going around with sail powered lifeboats. I suppose it might have its advantages, no motor maintenance, no fuel consumption all you need is a bit of a breeze and away you go. I wouldn’t particularly like to have to be involved in a rescue attempt if God forbid they had a man overboard or if they were caught in situation where they has to abandon in bad weather. I didn’t see the boat on the other side, it might have had a motor.

The badly painted name on the stern and the paint over job on the sail of the lifeboat reveals the former name of Golden Farmer, she was discharging grain on the day in Foynes.

Sea Fever

Published September 27, 2007 in USA, sailing ships, blog and Bloggers. 0 Comments

I noticed that my Technorati was showing an incoming link to Sea Fever, so curiosity got the better of me and I went for a visit. I was delighted to find another maritime blog and you would do no harm clicking in to seafever.org if you are into maritime heritage, and the like. Sailing ships seem to figure probably because the author was in the American Sail Training Association a recent post was very interesting about Alan Villiers check it out Sea Fever

Götheborg on show

Published July 3, 2007 in sailing ships, From Sweden, History and On the ship. 4 Comments

Pull that rope there…….

The sailing ship Götheborg was open to the public last Saturday at the old Röda Bolaget pier on the fashionable northern shore of the Göta River in Gothenburg. They wanted 100 crowns to walk around the deck, and get a feel of the authentic East India company replica which has recently returned from a round the world cruise, at a cost of half a billion crowns, however the publicity generated and contracts signed in China where the ship sailed to are said to be worth 5 billion crowns, so I’d say it was worth the money. Taking 100 crowns a head on the day for a tour of the ship was only crowd control really.
She was looking a bit battered from her journey but that it made the whole voyage in more or less one piece is remarkable, her predecessor sank on the way in to Gothenburg in 1745 after her third voyage from China, loaded with spice and silk and China!

It’s a pity the Irish ship Dunbrody couldn’t get sailing, it feels a bit of a waste to build a sea going ship for it to sit tied up in New Ross getting sea grass on the hull. Maybe they could take a leaf from the Götheborg story.
Update I have received info from Jim see below that the Dunbrody has actually been sailing, glad to hear it. I would like to hear about an Atlantic voyage like her namesake did in the 1800’s, does anyone know if that is on the cards?

Götheborg link www.soic.se