A recent chance to climb aboard the world’s largest wooden ocean-going sailing ship, learning about its construction and maintenance, was too good to pass up.
IN early August, the Götheborg of Sweden sailed up the River Thames, passing under Tower Bridge, before returning to Canary Wharf for a five-day stopover at Thames Quay in South Dock.
London was one of several ports to be visited on the Northern European leg of the ship’s Asia Expedition 2022/2023, before heading south to the Mediterranean to winter in Barcelona.
The Götheborg is an exact size replica of a tall ship owned by 18th-century traders the Swedish East India Company, used to carry goods to and from China. Its third return journey ended 900 metres from Gothenburg harbour where it ran aground in 1745.
This is the second time the replica, fully commissioned in 2005 with a build incorporating 4,000 m³ of oak and pine timbers, has undertaken an expedition to Asia. The objectives of Asia Expedition 2022/2023 include the promotion of Swedish–Asian trade, port stopovers offering would-be tall-ship sailors the chance to embark on an ocean-going learning experience to remember, and for landlubbers the opportunity to explore the world’s largest wooden ocean-going tall ship in the relative calm of a quayside mooring.
In London, these onboard tours were wildly popular, with tickets sold out.
Up close, the Götheborg is a giant, measuring 58 metres in length from bowsprit mast tip to stern. The bow’s forepeak supports the figurehead of a grinning, golden lion carved by British maritime artist Andy Peters. Above the windows of the Great Cabin and the balcony of the Captain’s Cabin, the transom is garlanded with water nymphs – chubby cherubs with fish tails – playing horns below the ship’s logo.
Above the waterline, the 11-metre-wide wooden hull is painted black and topped with a gunwale painted blue and yellow, the colours of the Swedish flag. The hull contains five deck levels, three above and two below the waterline. Above the waterline, the hull’s only apertures are five gun ports on both port and starboard sides.
The hull supports a dizzying array of masts, mast extensions, mast-top extensions, platforms, (horizontal) yards, furled sails, standing rigging, running rigging, and ropes wound taut, slack, trailing, knotted. A crew member manning the metal gangway leading up to the busy Weather Deck said around 25 tonnes of rope are needed to manually sail this full-rigged ship.
From the Weather Deck, a steep wooden staircase leads up to the shaded Sundeck above the Captain’s Cabin. The sail strung up to provide shade is attached to the mizzen mast (rear); a sturdy single stem of pine and the only solid timber mast in use.
Set in the fore of the Sundeck’s deck planking, an octagonal glass window reveals a Wheel Room with no view of the water, the helmsman relying on others, or modern technology, to ‘see’ for them.
The Götheborg is a replica of the original as far as the hull and rigging are concerned, with the ship’s steering and sails operating exactly as they would have done. A wooden cupboard conceals modern navigational instruments and the engines, housed below the waterline, enable the ship to travel when the wind changes direction.
Theories abound as to why the original ship ran aground 900 metres from home port.
After all, it had almost completed its return voyage, on the outbound leg trading Swedish wood, tar and iron in Cadiz for silver coins, rounding the Cape to reach Shanghai and return fully laden with Chinese silks, porcelain, tea and herbs. One theory is that the wind simply changed direction. No lives were lost and with much of the cargo (and some boat timbers) salvageable, the trip made a 15 per-cent profit.
Towards the bow, the main, fore and bowsprit masts (and most yards) are assemblages, blocks of timber pieced together rather like a sophisticated Jenga puzzle. Above deck, the main and foremasts’ additional structural strength comes from wooldings; groupings of rope (treated with Stockholm tar) spaced evenly up the stem. Each grouping contains six to eight turns of rope, each turn capable of withstanding 1.5 tonnes of tension.
Down a hatch to the busy Gun Deck, Dutch Bosun Ron Groenestein could be found sitting beside the base of the 47-metre-high main mast (incorporating two mast extensions).
The mast base broadens out below deck and down here the bands of iron encircling the mast base give it its main structural strength. Each iron band is heated to 800 degrees and set around the stem. Water is then poured over them and all are left to cool and shrink.
Some day visitors waited in line to chat to the bosun, while others peered into barrels or read about sticky, foul-smelling equator-crossing sailor initiations, the historical ship’s policy on alcohol and women (none allowed, and regularly broken) and below-deck fire rules (no candles or flammable material allowed unless you are captain).
Having spent most of his sailing career as a rigger on this and other historic vessels, Ron was able to explain succinctly a tall ship’s rigging. “Roughly speaking, everything above deck on the outside of the hull that makes the ship sail is part of the rigging. Standing rigging keeps the masts upright. The yards, the horizontal spars from which we have the sails hanging, are operated with ropes. That is the running rigging (they operate the sails and yards).”
While the exterior is an exact replica of the original Götheborg, the interior required modification to meet modern safety standards. Ceilings are 10 cm higher, with sprinklers installed in case of a fire, and the 30 cannons reduced to 10. Ron said: “In 1745, there would have been 140 crew aboard this ship, 100 living and sleeping (in hammocks, which is said to help ease seasickness) on this deck alongside sheep and chickens.”
This has been Ron’s first commission as bosun. He is responsible for all equipment, and is part of the 20 permanent crew. With it also being changeover day, 50 new trainee ‘deckhands’ joined the tour. Anyone can apply, no sailing experience required. The skills to sail a tall ship are taught on board.
Swedish watch leader Eli Gafvelin had a few minutes to spare before instructing the new deckhand trainees in entering the standing rigging to the top (platform). He is also one of two carpenters on board for this tour. Eli trained as a boat-builder 15 years ago, before building his own and then going on to gain five years’ experience sailing ships.
He said: “I am early in my career as a shipwright. Two years ago, I worked in a traditional wooden shipyard in Norway and joined the Götheborg last September, working in port and dry dock over the winter with another carpenter to get her ready.”
Last winter, the wood sculptures (laminated pine planks) on the transom were repaired.
Up in dry dock, the hull’s sacrificial planking was repaired or replaced. Eli said: “I have not seen this on any other ship. It is ‘sacrificial’ because in older days, ships needed protecting against shipworms. They did this by covering the oak planking with a mat made out of cow hair covered in tar, pitch, red lead, even glass powder, and then covering this with sacrificial planking. When they come to eat the ship, the worms meet this mat, turn around and leave. We pulled a lot of this planking off in dry dock (pine below the water line, oak above) and she was immaculate beneath the sacrificial planking. It is incredible how well preserved the wood is there.”
All gaps between boards and planks – in the hull or on deck – are caulked to keep the ship watertight. Traditional caulking involves filling seams between the boards with oakum (hemp fibre impregnated with tar) and then sealed with pitch. In Barcelona, above the hull’s waterline, the oak planks and softsides will be re-caulked.
Boatbuilding timbers are very rarely straight. A horizontal and curving oak ‘knee’ bracing the Götheborg’s Great Cabin starboard corner is a visible case in point. “It is hard to find shipbuilding timbers. When a tree is cut, it is generally planked. We need trees cut with live edges to be able to get the most out of it, large pieces that we can cut curves into for sections of the bow for example. And we always want it quarter sawn, which is tricky to find when working with dimensions this big.”
Deciding what equipment and timbers to bring on a one-and-a-half-year voyage is a challenge. Behind the forepeak, between the portside hull wall and a solid section of European white oak – stem and buttress (one of two sections probably from the same tree) housing the anchor and chain, a ship-shape carpentry workshop is separated from the main cabin by a gauzy curtain. The workshop houses two workbenches, a planer thicknesser, tools, gauges, adzes, plywood cupboards housing bespoke draws filled with boxes that are filled with too many useful items to detail. All is securable: all must be ‘sea stowed’.
Returning towards the Weather Deck, Eli pointed to oak 2x4s stored beneath the cannon barrels. Originally, cannons were used mostly to scare pirates or send a salute when entering a harbour. Up on the Weather Deck, two rowing boats, many brooms and the ship’s bell (used for keeping time, signalling or sounding an alarm) are housed along the keel line between the main and fore masts. Above them, long wooden planks, substantial square-sawn butts, and thinner spare octagonal yards are stored just above head height.
All are tied together and secured with lashing knots.
Most timber on the starboard side is oak, planks to be used for the hull, or butts to be used for channels (blocks sticking out on either side of the boat that anchor standing rigging shrouds that secure the masts) should they get damaged during docking. On the port side, thinner planks will go for decking, a square-cut piece of tight-grained Douglas fir for a new angled mizzen yard, a dark octagonal timber (a spare top mast treated with oil and tar) is being treated carefully; the tree it came from began growing as the original ship ran aground.
“The traditional wood used for yards in Sweden is spruce. Scandinavia has relatively few native tree species, so they got good at figuring out what wood to use where. Spruce is 30 per cent lighter than the pine (Pinus sylvestris) we have, but can rot from the inside while looking fine from the outside.We started trying to switch them out for pine or Douglas fir. We had all the spars (yards) down last winter for inspections and checks. We still want to have a replacement to be able to switch things out if needed.”
The Götheborg can reach a (recorded) top speed of 12 knots. Eli said 10 knots is fine if it is under controlled circumstances: if the wind is blowing and the sails have been taken in. “What is scary is if the wind picks up very rapidly and you have not taken down the ‘light wind’ sails; it is no fun when she goes fast like that. I have five years of sea-time at this point and have been out in bad weather. We had a squall coming in to London. We saw the weather front and all of a sudden there was wind and rain everywhere. It happens on the North Sea in the summertime. We had one sail that just broke. After this expedition, the Götheborg will be taken into dry dock in Shanghai to see how she is doing and any repairs will be made.”
With that, carpenter Eli disappeared below deck and reappeared as watch leader and training instructor: as lead climber scaling the main mast standing rigging shrouds. The new team of mid-ship deckhands tentatively followed behind in single file, eager to be shown the ropes – literally.
www.gotheborg.se
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