Kruzenshtern (barque, ex-Padua)

Type

Bark

Period

20th Century

Nation

Russia

Overview: Kruzenshtern is a four-masted barque, one of the largest traditional sailing vessels still operating today. Built in Germany as the Padua, she is the last surviving of the famous Flying P-Liner fleet still actively sailing, and today serves as a Russian sail training ship for cadets. Specifications: The ship is 114.5 metres long with a beam of 14.02 metres and a draught of around 6.8-7.2 metres depending on loading. Her four masts (up to 56 metres tall) originally carried around 3,400-3,800 square metres of sail across roughly 34 sails, and she was built with a tonnage of 3,064 GRT as a cargo carrier, later refitted with twin 1,000 bhp diesel engines for auxiliary power. Service History: Built in 1926 at the Tecklenborg yard in Geestemünde (Bremerhaven) for Hamburg ship owner F. Laeisz, Padua sailed the Cape Horn nitrate and grain trade between Europe, Chile, and Australia, and set a round-trip speed record for square-riggers in 1938-39 under Captain Richard Wendt. Surrendered to the USSR in January 1946 as war reparations, she was renamed Kruzenshtern and moored at Kronstadt until 1961, after which she was used for hydrographic and oceanographic survey work alongside cadet training through the 1960s. She has since taken part in events such as Operation Sail in New York Harbor in 1976 and numerous Tall Ships' Races, and has circumnavigated the globe multiple times, notably in 1995-96 and 2005-06, retracing her namesake's famous voyage. Notable Facts: The ship's hull is painted in the traditional Flying P-Liner scheme with a false row of gunports along a white stripe, a decorative holdover from the age of sail. She is today administered by the Baltic Fishing Fleet State Academy in Kaliningrad and, after her sister ship Sedov, is considered the second-largest traditional sailing vessel still in operation. She has been involved in a few notable incidents in recent decades, including sinking a tug under tow at Esbjerg, Denmark in 2014 and colliding with two Icelandic Coast Guard vessels in 2015.