East Indiaman relives its glorious days

The magnificent East Indiaman Götheborg III, a replica of the original 18th-century trading vessel East Indiaman Götheborg I, arrived in Stockholm last week on its maiden journey after the construction completed in Gothenborg earlier this year.

This event was a sensation for the whole of Sweden as well as for China, becuase for the first time in 267 years, an East Indiaman trading vessel will set sail to China, re-enacting its glorious history in the past.

The original ship was built in 1738 and unfortunately sank right outside the harbour of Gothenburg in 1745, on returning from its third voyage to China. No one is sure why exactly it sank. The most likely cause was that it ran aground when hitting a rock. Along with the ship, a massive volume of procelain, spice, silk and furniture also hit the bottom of the ocean, and they were not to see light again until a series of excavations salvaged them in the 80s and 90s. Luckily, all the crew on board were rescued.

The replica was built at the Terra Nova dock in Gothenburg, named after the original shipyard that was located at the present-day "Dramaten" theater by Strandvägen, Stockholm. So its visit to Stockholm on August 17-21 was a homecoming.

I visited the ship on the last day of its stay in Stockholm and had to wait in line for about an hour before I could go onboard. But it was definitely worth the wait. It was a special experience for me to see all the details of the ship come together since my visit to the Terra Nova dock in Gothenborg two years ago. At that time, only the front mast was erected and shipbuilders were still working on the main mast and a million other details. The smell of tar gives the ship a freshness. And the vastness of its scale is simply mind-boggling. Imagine the kind of work human beings were able to achieve already in the 1700s. Ships have surely become much larger today, but nothing beats the beauty of such an old-fashioned ocean-going vessel.

As many as 3,500 visitors went onboard and even more lined up the islands that make up Stockholm to wave goodbye to the East Indiaman when it set sail for the southern city of Malmö at 6 p.m. The clouds broke open right at the moment the ship was pulled out of the dock by a tugboat. A three-mast student ship led the way and a large number of motorboats joined the party and trailed along the ship as a farewell gesture. It was a wonderful sight to behold.

After Malmö, the ship will visit Copenhagen on the 28th and then back to Gothenburg for an exhibition. In October this year, it will start its two-year long round-the-world journey: from Gothenburg to Cadiz, Spain; Recife, Brazil; Cape Town, South Africa; Fremantle, Australia; Jakarta, Indonesia; Guangzhou, China and finally, Shanghai, China. On its return journey, it will pass through Hong Kong, Mauritius, Port Elizabeth, Ascension, Azores and London.

To read more about the history of trade between Sweden and China, see my article, For All the Tea in China

And here is my article written during the construction of the ship, which includes an interview with the master shipbuilder Joakim Severinson:
Winds of the Past