The birthday girl arrived and the party started
July 12, 2014
In thirty six degrees of glorious sunshine The Tall Ships Races 2014 arrived into Fredrikstad, Norway and the riverside has been packed with visitors as the ships came alongside.
Amongst them, two Norweigan vessels have been enjoying some friendly rivalry. Statsraad Lehmkuhl and Christian Radich, both Class A’s have had each other in their sights as they compete for positions high up the race rankings. Adding extra incentive to shine, Statsraad Lehmkuhl celebrates her 100th birthday this year, with the next port on the route being her hometown of Bergen, Norway.
Statsraad Lehmkuhl cut a fantastic profile coming in to dock, and as the trainees of this wonderful Tall Ship were disembarking from their week long voyage, Sail Training International was able to talk to one about his experience on board this remarkable historic sail training vessel.
Simen Bíyesen had been on a comparatively tiny vessel in last year’ races, and he talked us through some of the differences between being on board a Class C and a Class A ship. äóìI can’t really explain it, [there are] 110 trainees on board Statsraad Lehmkuhl, last year on the small vessel we had four. We had three watches, 30 people each watch and then there’ always people around you, it’ tougher, it’ a lot of rope pulling and there’ a lot of sails that have to come up, but last year it was much harder on the body because you don’t get any sleep. This year [on the bigger ship] you have six hours a day and on some shifts you can end up with less work to do because there’ a still wind.äó
The sense of team building on board Statsraad Lehmkuhl is a tribute to its great history as a sail training vessel, Simen explained; äóìThe whole STI programme is about community. As soon as you get on the boat you start meeting new people. This year I was sailing with the same people I was last year, so we were in Amsterdam first then joined in Harlingen. The age difference is big, from 15 up to 50. There’ a lot of kids from Norway from 15-17, but the card playing, the chat and all the same stuff you do with your own friends brings you together. I met a lot of people who travelled alone, now one of them is from here [Fredrikstad] and she’ taking home three guys from the Netherlands to camp in her garden because they didn’t have any place to stay, so that’ how this works.äó
We asked Simen if there was much discussion about the 100th anniversary, but he told us that the crew and the trainees had remained focused to ensure they shine as the ship turns one century old. äóìThe only thing that the captain and crew was talking about was to beat Christen Radich. On the first day the captain