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Kalmar Nyckel Just a quick note to say how excited I was to see the Kalmar Nyckel featured on the glossy cover of the latest issue of Sea History. A couple of years back, I met with Kalmar Nyckel Foundation’s marketing director and I strongly recommended they get in touch with NMHS. Glad that worked out. As a trustee of the Ossining Historical Society, I was trying to organize a sail cruise event with them when the ship would be visiting towns along the Hudson River. I’ve had the pleasure of sailing on the Kalmar Nyckel on two occasions out of Kingston [New York] and it was definitely a “bucket list” experience. While I grew up racing small sailboats, I’d never actually sailed on an authentic square-rigger, although I had written about it. One of my novels, a supernatural tale set here along the river, involved a VOC Dutch East India ship about the same size and era as the Kalmar
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filling those sails. I don’t believe there is any better way to help understand history than to experience it, and the hard work the folks at the Kalmar Nyckel organization do to enable that is invaluable. Also, a huge thanks to the NMHS for the same reason. I always look forward to my next issue of Sea History. (By the way, that’s me trimming the lateen sail in the photo [at left]—a little bit more work than sailing a J24!) Robert Stava Ossining, New York Having lived and worked throughout the Greater China region for 25 years, I missed a great deal of America’s cultural evolution in the 1980s and ’90s. On vacations on Maryland’s Eastern Shore during that time,
I contributed to the construction and operation of the Sultana, a replica 18th-century topsail schooner built in and operated out of Chestertown, Maryland. It wasn’t until we returned home permanently in 1998 that I first learned of the replica pinnace Kalmar Nyckel. We were driving north to visit my elderly father in Pennsylvania, and as we traversed the Wilmington, Delaware, bypass, I was shocked to see what looked like a 17th-century vessel under sail in the Delaware River. My first thought was, “OMG, have we entered some kind of time warp?” With a bit of research, I learned about how the wonderful people of Delaware had this magnificent replica built and put into service as a hands-on, living educational museum. I then found a book called A Man and His Ship: Peter Minuit and the Kalmar Nyckel by C. A. Weslager (1989). It seems to have been well researched, but when reading Sam Heed and Jordi Noort’s article in the Spring 2021 issue of Sea History, I learned of his one major error—his story of the end of the Kalmar Nyckel. This article now has a permanent place in my library. Having retired to a riparian site on the Chester River, we are thrilled each year at Chestertown’s Down Rigging Weekend in November when the Kalmar Nyckel makes a visit to our riverport as part of our festivities. Den Leventhal Chestertown, Maryland
Join Us for a Voyage into History Nyckel. So, to be able to stand on her deck, having helped set the mainsail as they cut the engines, was a truly remarkable life experience! It didn’t hurt that we had stormy, dramatic weather that afternoon on the Hudson River as we approached the castle on Bannerman’s Island. It was like dropping back centuries in time. I can’t say enough good things about the crew of the ship and the captain. Everyone working onboard was extremely knowledgeable, helpful, and enthusiastic about the ship and what she represents. Watching the crew clamber up the ratlines and onto the yards to loose the sails was really something, as was the sound of wind
Our seafaring heritage comes alive in the pages of Sea History, from the ancient mariners of Greece to Portuguese navigators opening up the ocean world to the heroic efforts of sailors in modern-day conflicts. Each issue brings new insights and discoveries. If you love the sea, rivers, lakes, and
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