Ship ahoy or How to get to London the difficult way

[Threviel]

i'm not sure how well known the East Indiaman Götheborg is. It's a replica of a ship that sank on the return voyage from China in 1738 just outside the harbour of Gothenburg. It's one of the largest wooden sailing ships around today.

The replica has been sailing since 2005 and has made on China voyage and a lot of shorter voyages. It's right now on the outward leg of a new voyage to China.

I applied to join as a deck hand for the leg from Oslo to London and today I was accepted. I'm over the moon right now, I will be getting to sail on a square rigged ship over the North Sea.

[celedhring]

That sounds awesome

When are you making the trip?

[Josephus]

Cool. Good luck.

[grumbler]

Remember:  one hand for the ship, and one for yourself.

Sounds like quite an adventure, even if you just end up on mess duty.

[Jacob]

That is super cool! That is absolutely something I would enjoy, so I understand why you're over the moon

I have a bunch of questions:

What sort of qualifications do you have? How big is the crew? How long is the journey expected to take? When is it happening? Do you have any details on what will you be doing specifically?

But yeah, super cool

[Jacob]

Here are a few pictures I just googled. Gorgeous

[Tamas]

This is extremely cool. 

[Richard Hakluyt]

Experience of a lifetime, grats 

[Berkut]

Wow, that is amazing!

[HVC]

Congrats on beginning your journey to becoming a pirate!

[Zanza]

Very cool. Enjoy!

[Threviel]

What sort of qualifications do you have? How big is the crew? How long is the journey expected to take? When is it happening? Do you have any details on what will you be doing specifically?

No qualifications at all. I'm from a family of seafarers and fishermen, but that ended in the mid 80's. I'm brought up by the sea, but haven't had anything to do with it since I was a kid. I'm borderline land lubber.

The crew is 25 (real) sailors and 50 deck hands (me).

It's 7 days sailing and 4 days in London. One or two days in Oslo beforehand probably, haven't gotten the details.

30/7 to 11/8.

I will probably be (shout out to grumbler) doing mess duty and pulling ropes and polishing tar or something. It might be that they need money (I'll pay about 1000€) so I'll just be a glorified passenger or something, I don't know.

I looked this up the last time they were out a few years ago, a Facebook friend had volunteered. Then Corona hit and I just forgot about it. Last week the same friend posted that his wife was joining so I looked it up again. Apparently still places left aboard so I signed up and today I got the response. I barely believe it and somewhat suspect some IT problem and that they'll call and tell me it's a mistake.

[chipwich]

I wanna read about a keel hauling in the news.

[grumbler]

I wanna read about a keel hauling in the news.

It's not so traumatic now that ships have modern antifouling paint.  It still wouldn't be a doddle, though.

[grumbler]

Anyway, I find the ship's design to be very interesting.  It's clearly a ship made when sailing ships were moving from the heavier ships with extreme tumblehome and relatively short masts to taller masts.  Look how far down they had to place the outriggers that hold the standing rigging (rigging the hold up the mast).  I also am a bit puzzled by the lack of a forecastle.  Transitional designs are always more interesting than mature designs.

The story of her loss is also interesting.  The phenomenon that led to her loss wasn't scientifically explained until 1905 (ironically, by a Swedish scientist, Vagn Walfrid Ekman).