At Sea, Windward Islands, Lesser Antilles
Yesterday afternoon we finally arrived at Antigua to find our home for the following week berthed at the Heritage Quay in St John’s. As we drove up, all we could see were two enormous, several-thousand passenger cruise ships tied alongside the quays – we all breathed a sigh of delighted relief when we first saw the 3-masted, classic-looking sailing ship Sea Cloud II, one of the most beautiful ships on the seas today, dwarfed by it’s neighbours but infinitely more exciting.
Although a completely modern and luxurious vessel, the Sea Cloud II is entirely hand sailed and displays the type of rigging that was state of the art in the late nineteenth century. After breakfast this morning, we all came up on deck to witness the handling of this marvel of sailing technology – an experience that is nowadays extremely rare to behold – and to learn the basics about the sails, the rigging and the morning’s sailing manoeuvres from our Expedition Leader, Tom, and Captain Karlsson.
We learned that the Sea Cloud II is a true barque, as she has three masts (fore, main and mizzen) of which the first two are square-rigged and the last one is fore-and-aft rigged. Until the mid-19th century, barques were relatively small commercial sailing ships of up to 500 tons. Later they were built to about 3000 gross registered tonnage for the grain and nitrate trades and further growth saw the advent of four and five-masted barques of up to 5000 GRT. Although now obsolete as trading ships, several of the larger barques are still in commission as sail-training vessels and new barque-rigged vessels have been built for this purpose. Our ship was built in the year 2000 and is fully rigged with three different types of sails: eleven square sails (as ships got larger so the sail area had to, resulting in the increase of the number of sails so these could remain of a manageable size), nine head and stay sails and two gaff sails – all amounting to a total surface area of just under 30 000 square feet! It takes a total of sixteen men to set these sails: a bo’sun and fifteen sailors who are divided into two groups, one in charge of the foremast and bowsprit, the other in charge of main and mizzen masts. It also takes a tremendous amount of teamwork, which is truly thrilling to behold; as is seeing the crew nimbly climb the shrouds to untie the gaskets and unfurl sails, some of which are as high as 200 ft!
We had a wonderful day of sailing, until late afternoon, and reached speeds of up to eleven knots with most of the sails set to take advantage of the mild winds. Also during the day we had the first of a series of staff presentations where we learnt about the geological formation of the Caribbean region and got familiar with the different areas of the ship, including the SPA, sauna and gym. Now completely settled in and inspired by the truly unique experience we are living, we enjoyed our Captain’s welcome dinner and second night on board as we sailed on towards the Grenadines.
Yesterday afternoon we finally arrived at Antigua to find our home for the following week berthed at the Heritage Quay in St John’s. As we drove up, all we could see were two enormous, several-thousand passenger cruise ships tied alongside the quays – we all breathed a sigh of delighted relief when we first saw the 3-masted, classic-looking sailing ship Sea Cloud II, one of the most beautiful ships on the seas today, dwarfed by it’s neighbours but infinitely more exciting.
Although a completely modern and luxurious vessel, the Sea Cloud II is entirely hand sailed and displays the type of rigging that was state of the art in the late nineteenth century. After breakfast this morning, we all came up on deck to witness the handling of this marvel of sailing technology – an experience that is nowadays extremely rare to behold – and to learn the basics about the sails, the rigging and the morning’s sailing manoeuvres from our Expedition Leader, Tom, and Captain Karlsson.
We learned that the Sea Cloud II is a true barque, as she has three masts (fore, main and mizzen) of which the first two are square-rigged and the last one is fore-and-aft rigged. Until the mid-19th century, barques were relatively small commercial sailing ships of up to 500 tons. Later they were built to about 3000 gross registered tonnage for the grain and nitrate trades and further growth saw the advent of four and five-masted barques of up to 5000 GRT. Although now obsolete as trading ships, several of the larger barques are still in commission as sail-training vessels and new barque-rigged vessels have been built for this purpose. Our ship was built in the year 2000 and is fully rigged with three different types of sails: eleven square sails (as ships got larger so the sail area had to, resulting in the increase of the number of sails so these could remain of a manageable size), nine head and stay sails and two gaff sails – all amounting to a total surface area of just under 30 000 square feet! It takes a total of sixteen men to set these sails: a bo’sun and fifteen sailors who are divided into two groups, one in charge of the foremast and bowsprit, the other in charge of main and mizzen masts. It also takes a tremendous amount of teamwork, which is truly thrilling to behold; as is seeing the crew nimbly climb the shrouds to untie the gaskets and unfurl sails, some of which are as high as 200 ft!
We had a wonderful day of sailing, until late afternoon, and reached speeds of up to eleven knots with most of the sails set to take advantage of the mild winds. Also during the day we had the first of a series of staff presentations where we learnt about the geological formation of the Caribbean region and got familiar with the different areas of the ship, including the SPA, sauna and gym. Now completely settled in and inspired by the truly unique experience we are living, we enjoyed our Captain’s welcome dinner and second night on board as we sailed on towards the Grenadines.
