KALININGRAD, December 8. /TASS/. Russia’s legendary windjammers The Sedov and The Kruzenshtern have entered the Baltic Sea to begin the Peace Sails round-the-world voyage, the expedition’s press center said on Sunday.
The expedition, being held from November 2019 to December 2020, for the first involves all the three Russian training windjammers. Along with the Sedov and the Kruzenshtern, the Pallada is taking part. She sailed off from Vladivostok in the Russian Far East on November 1 to make a round-the world voyage along with the Sedov. The Kruzenshtern will make a trans-Atlantic voyage.
The seeing off ceremony for the Sedov and the Kruzenshtern was held in Kaliningrad on Saturday but the ships put to sea only on Sunday because of the stormy weather.
"The Sedov and Kruzenshtern captains used the so-called window when the wind slackened to navigate the ships via the Kaliningrad seaway canal to the sea," the press center said.
The Kruzenshtern is heading for Spain’s Santa Cruz de Tenerife where she is expected to arrive on December 25. The Sedov will make its first stopover in Spain’s Las Palmas on December 31.
The expedition is dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the discovery of Antarctica by the Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, known in Russia as Faddey Bellingshausen, and Mikhail Lazarev and the 75th anniversary of the victory over Nazism. It involves 692 students of naval schools and 56 sea cadets.
The ships will call at more than 40 ports in North and South America, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. In all, the three ships are to cover a distance of about 100,000 nautical miles.
The Kruzenshtern
The Kruzenshtern, a four-masted barque, was built in 1926 at Geestemnde in Bremerhaven, Germany and was given the Italian name of the Padua (after the Italian city). She was surrendered to the Soviet Union in 1946 as war reparation and renamed after the early 19th century Baltic German explorer in Russian service, Adam Johann Krusenstern (1770-1846). The world’s last classical sailing ship originally built as such, she is still in use, mainly for training purposes, with her homeports in Kaliningrad (formerly Koenigsberg) and Murmansk.
The Sedov
The Sedov barque, originally named the Magdalene Vinnen II, was launched in Kiel in 1921 at the Friedrich Krupp Germaniwrft. She was used as a cargo ship voyaging from Europe to South America, Australia, South East Asia and Oceania. In 1936, the Magdalene Vinnen II was sold to Norddeutscher Lloyd, Bremen and renamed the Kommodore Johnsen. The new owner modified it to a cargo-carrying training ship, and apart from its permanent crew, the ship was to have 50 to 60 trainee officers aboard on each journey. She came under Russian state ownership after the surrender of Germany, in December 1945, when the British handed over the ship to the Soviet Union as war reparation. In the Soviet Union, she was converted into a sail training vessel of the Soviet Navy. She was renamed the Sedov after the Arctic explorer Georgy Sedov who died during an Arctic expedition in 1914.
Today, the Sedov is a sail training vessel. The barque has been entered into the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest traditional sailing ship in operation. The 117.5-meter-long ship has sails more than 4,000 square meters in area. She holds the official world sailing ship's speed record of 18.32 knots.