.Paul_Gerritsen

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Another ship to be seen at Sail Amsterdam: the Kruzenshtern. The lingering after-life of deep-water sail is somehow encapsulated in the story of the Kruzenshtern. She began life as the Padua when she was launched in 1926 to join the Flying P Line as a nitrate carrier, working round Cape Horn to South America. With the end of the nitrate trade she moved to the grain trade and made several trips to Port Lincoln in Australia. Like all the big steel barques of the Flying P Line she was built to be hard driven - indeed the skippers of these magnificent vessels were instructed to seek out gales in order to make the fastest passages possible! To this end the Padua once reeled off 351 nautical miles noon to noon and went out to Port Lincoln from Hamburg in 67 days. After the war she was taken over by the USSR and renamed after the famous Russian navigator and hydrographer, Admiral Ivan Kruzenshtern. Her cargo carrying days over, she has since been used as a training vessel for cadets going in for a career in the Fishery Board.