No Russian windjammers at DelfSail
No Russian Tall Ships are coming to DelfSail, which will be held for the seventh time from 13 to 16 June. Among others, the famous Mir and Kruzenshtern have been barred since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Nowadays large sailing ships are a special feature that attract a lot of attention, but a century ago, three-, four- and five-masted barges regularly called at Delfzijl. South American fertiliser, called Chilisalpeter, accounted for 50 % of total imports for the northern seaport in 1929.
Shipping company Laeisz
One of the ships that visited the port many times in the early last century was the four-masted barque Peking of the Hamburg shipping company Laeisz. […]
In the early 19th century, Ferdinand Laiesz laid the foundations for a shipping company with a fast-growing fleet, all of whose ship names began with a P. Under the white flag with the initials FL, famous sailing ships such as the Padua, Pamir, Passat, Peking, Pommern, Potosi, Preussen and Priwall sailed over the years. These three-, four- or five-masters gained particular fame in the saltpetre or nitrate trade from Chile to Europe. The fast voyages, all the way around Cape Horn, earned the shipping company the epithet Flying P-Line.
DelfSail
The Peking now lies fully restored in Hamburg. Another P-liner, the Padua, was transferred to the former Soviet Union as part of reparations after WWII and joined the Russian navy as a training ship Kruzenshtern in 1955. The ship regularly competed in international sailing events. The Kruzenshtern was also a regular guest during Sail Amsterdam and DelfSail. The last time she called at Delfzijl was during DelfSail 2016. The ship is not welcome at DelfSail this year. Nor at the other Festivals of the Seven Seas.
The legacy
Even without Russian ships, DelfSail, which was first organised in 1986, promises to be a grand festivity that hundreds of thousands of enthusiasts look forward to. This year’s theme is ‘The legacy of the seven seas’, a reference to the previous seven editions, thus also connecting people and shipping in the past and present.
Read the fuller article by Henk Zuur in the Schuttevaer (dutch, subscribers only).
Photo above: the Kruzenshtern under sail.
Windassist sponsor