Roald Amundsen

The German sail training brig Roald Amundsen arrived May 31 and tied up at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. The "tall ship*" is on its way to the Great Lakes to participate in a series of events in several ports. She sailed from the Baltic in February, through an icy Kiel Canal and gradually up the US east coast.

She will sail from Halifax ca. June 3 to Montreal (June 18) and Toronto (through July 5) giving sail training along the way, then to ten US ports before returning to Montreal and Halifax (September 19.)

Built in 1952 as a water tanker for the East German fishing fleet and military (if I have patched together my reports correctly) she was rebuilt in 1992-93 as a sail training vessel.

She takes paying crew on each leg of the trip. Those interested in booking passage should go to the ship's web page:

http://www.sailtraining.de/homepage.html?&L=1

There are also details on the vessel's itinerary on the web site.

* the term "Tall Ship" has been adopted by the sail training community to mean a sailing vessel used for training. This definition is not adhered to very strictly, and may refer to anything with more or less vertical sticks and canvas.

As a non-nautical term, "Tall Ship" is set out with quotation marks, to reflect editorial disapproval. I do this with the full knowledge that the Prentice-Hall handbook for Writers, Fourth Edition says: "quotation marks should be omitted if they are intended as an apology for the use of slang." I am not apologizing, I just want you to know that it is not my term!