Tall Ship Ahoy

THE ITALIAN navy’s tall ship, Amerigo Vespucci, yesterday docked at Limassol port as part of its annual training cruises.

The ship will remain at Limassol port until Monday, according to the Italian Embassy.

Members of the public will be allowed onboard the school ship today and tomorrow between 5pm to 7pm and 8.30pm and 10pm on Saturday and between 3pm to 6pm on Sunday.

The ship’s captain will meet with the town’s political and military authorities during the vessel’s berthing.

As part of this year’s training cruise the Amerigo Vespucci’s ports of call, in addition to Cyprus, include Malta, Israel, Greece, Turkey and Ukraine.

The Amerigo Vespucci is an elegant three-masted, full-rigged sailing ship of the Marina Militare, named after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci. Her home port is Livorno, Italy and serves as the training vessel of the Italian Naval Academy. As of 2004, she is the last surviving three-decked square rigger.

In 1925, the Regia Marina ordered the design of two school ships, inspired by the style of large late 18th century 74-cannon ships of the line.

The first, the ‘Cristoforo Colombo’, was put into service in 1928 and was used by the Italian Navy until 1943. After World War II, this ship was handed over to the Soviet Union as part of the war reparations and was shortly afterwards decommissioned. The Italians preserved two paintings from the ‘Cristoforo Colombo’, and these now hang at opposite ends of the wardroom at the stern of Amerigo Vespucci.

The Amerigo Vespucci was built in 1930 and launched a year later.

The vessel is 82.4 metres long, with an overall length of 101 metres including the bowsprit and a maximum width of 15.5 metres. She has a draught of about seven metres and a displacement at full load of 4,146 tons.

The Amerigo Vespucci has 26 traditional, canvas sails including square sails, staysails, and jibs. When sailing she can reach a maximum speed of up to 12 knots.

The hull is painted black with two white stripes in reference to the two gun decks of the original ships the design is based on, but she carries only two 6pdr saluting guns in pivot mountings on the deck, forward of the mainmast.

Bow and stern are decorated with intricate ornaments and she has a life-size figurehead of her namesake, Amerigo Vespucci.

The stern gallery is accessible only through the Captain’s salon.

Cruise to Alaska: Day Two (Ketchikan)

As I write this article, I am sitting on Deck 14 of the Sapphire Princess cruise ship after having spent most of the day in Ketchikan, Alaska.  This was our first stop in Alaska on this trip, and it was definitely a great place to start out with.  If you have been following my narrative of this trip to Alaska, you know that I am here with my extended family, and each of us spent our day differently here.

My husband, my younger daughter, and I woke up at about 8 am, and had breakfast on the ship.  Then the three of us disembarked, and walked into the downtown area of Ketchikan.  Call me uniformed, but until today, I did not realize that Ketchikan, and most of the areas that we are visiting on this cruise are islands.  The year round population of Ketchikan is between 11,000 to 13,000 people.  Ketchikan is the fourth largest city in Alaska.

The three of us walked off the cruise ship, and into the center of the small downtown area.  It took about 10 minutes to reach downtown which is primarily filled with shops for tourists, and restaurants.  There are also a few tourist shows including a Lumberjack show.  Many of the shops are fine jewelry shops, because Alaska is one of the best places in the United States to buy diamond jewelry and other gemstones.  However, we were not interested in that so we skipped most of those shops, and looked for galleries and native art shops.

We happened upon a small but very interesting shop called the Alaska Inner Passage Trading Company run by Raoul and Joanne Grospe.  We ended up spending about 30 minutes talking to them about their wares, and Ketchikan.  They are extremely friendly, and we learned quite a bit about the weather, and the various native stone carvings.  There were several very interesting carved stone pieces, including serpentine, Alaskan glacier jade, and Alaskan marble.  Although we wanted to buy a much larger piece, we ended up buying a small serpentine bear for $35.  There were lovely totem poles, hand carved wooden wall hangings, and many stone figures.  If you get a chance, you should definitely visit the Grospe’s shop.

There are many beautiful souvenirs that you can purchase in Ketchikan.  We saw some exquisite hand sewn quilts, original art, and of course, lots of fine jewelry.  If you are in the market for these things, Ketchikan is a good place to find them.  We also learned that you can send the items back to yourself using the United States Post Office flat rate boxes, because Alaska is in the U.S., it is considered domestic purchases, so you don’t have to worry about customs.

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