Not a replica, but a "caravel-type" adapted for sail training, this 77ft vessel will commemorate the voyage of Bartolomeu Dias with a voyage from Portugal to Mossel Bay, South Africa beginning this November.
member asking him if he had a craving for any dish in particular and he exclaimed, "Please! No codfish!" Villiers recognized, as have so many others, that the training one gets in ships is the best preparation for life at sea and for forming character in a young person for life at sea or ashore. The life aboard ship is one of discipline, and adapting to this way of life takes a great deal of effort and teamwork, while at the same time it develops the individual. The Sagres made her seventy-seventh and last voyage as a training ship in 1961 and was retired for use as a stationary schoolship. It soon became apparent that it was too expensive to maintain the ship, and when maritime hi storians in Germany expressed an interest in restoring her as the Rickmer Rickmers, she returned to Hamburg where she is on display today as a museum ship . When she left Portugal, thousands of sailors who had sailed in her at one time or another were sad to see her go. The Portuguese Navy replaced the Sagres with a second bark of that name. This one was also built in Germany and is a sister ship of the United States Coast Guard training ship Eagle . In addition, Portugal has three other sail training ships used to train young men and women: the sloop Vega, the two-masted schooner Polar, and most recently the four-masted schooner Creoula, one of the last of the wind-driven ships of the
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cod fisheries. To this already considerable fleet of sail training ships, the Portuguese Sail Training Association (APORVELA), whose president is Dr. Luis Guimaraes Lobato, is adding a new ship which has been inspired by the quincentenary of the Dias voyage round the Cape of Good Hope . After lengthy discussions about how best to celebrate Dias's epochal achievement, APORVELA decided to design and build a vessel which would recall the ships used by Dias and his contemporaries. Headed by naval engineer Rear Admiral Rogerio de Oliveira, a group of APORVELA's members initiated studies into an appropriate design with the collaboration of, among others, Professor of Engineering Jose Rodrigues Branco, an historian of wooden shipbuilding during the Portuguese Age of Discoveries; Dr. Manuel Leitao, who contributed new ideas on the handling of lateen-rigged vessels of the day; Engineer Christopher Thomas North, who contributed valuable historical and technical assistance; and myself. We knew that there was little objective information available on fifteenth-century caravels , except what could be gleaned from artistic renderings in contemporary charts and documents. Moreover, the international project would have to offer some justification for the substantial investment it entailed beyond the mere wish to participate in the quincentennial com-
memoration of the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope. With this in mind, and in order to promote its objectives in sail training, APORVELA decided to research and build a "caravel-type ship" which could safely be used as a sail training vessel for young people after her inaugural voyage from Lisbon around the Cape of Good Hope to Mossel Bay, South Africa. As designed by Admiral Rogerio de Oliveira, a modem hull form is wedded to upper works which reproduce as closely as is practical the appearance and rig of a fifteenth-century caravel. The interior of the vessel is designed with due austerity to accommodate sixteen crew members. Plans for the caravel were submitted to the Portuguese Committee in South Africa for their approval, with the clear understanding that it did not represent an "archaeological reconstruction" of a caravel, and were enthusiastically approved .. The little ship has a length overall of 23.5 meters and a beam of 6.62 meters. She draws 2.88 meters, with a depth of hold of 3. 70 meters . Construction of the caravel-which incorporates a variety of woods, including cluster pine, stone pine and oak-is being carried out by the firm of Samuel & Filho in Vila do Conde. They are specialists in the building of traditional vessels and are located in an area from which many ships were launched during the heyday of the Portuguese voyages of discovery. The rig consists of main and mizzen masts crossing long single lateen yards. The main deck is flush from bow to stem with hatchways providing access and light below. There is a stem castle built above the main deck, whence the ship is navigated and steered by tiller, as of old. The ship will begin her voyage from Portugal in mid-November 1987 and is scheduled to arrive in Mossel Bay in early February 1988 . While in South Africa she will visit several ports at the invitation of the Portuguese communities whose support has been crucial to the success of this undertaking. The quincentenary of Bartolomeu Dias's voyage of discovery will thus be celebrated fittingly, at sea, in a gesture that will remind the world of the great achievements of the Portuguese navigators. .t
Commander Cardoso of the Portuguese Navy was until recently Deputy Director of the Maritime Museum in Lisbon; he is now on special assignment at the National Commission for the Commemoration of Portuguese Discoveries. SEA HISTORY , AUTUMN 1987