Mercator (ship, 1932)
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The Mercator is a training sailboat built in 1932 for the Belgian merchant fleet.
history
Pre-war history
In 1931, the Belgian government commissioned the construction of a new sailing training ship for the training of young sailors in the merchant fleet . It was launched in early 1932 at the Scottish shipyard Ramage and Ferguson in Leith and put into operation on April 7, 1932 by the operating company, the "Association Maritime Belge". At first it sailed as a topsail schooner , following a primary contact with damage in the bow and at the rigging on the maiden voyage was left the ship at a shipyard in Normandy and Barkentine umtakeln.
Until the beginning of World War II, the ship made several trips. The seventh trip from October 3, 1934 to May 21, 1935, on which a Belgian-French research expedition to Easter Island was transported and monolith sculptures from the island were taken for European museums , was particularly noteworthy . The islands Pitcairn , Tahiti , Papeete and the Marquesas Islands as well as Honolulu were also called.
In 1936 the Mercator brought the body of the Flemish missionary Father Damian de Veuster from Molokai, who died in 1889, back to Belgium.
On February 21, 1940, the Mercator left the port of Ostend on its twentieth and final pre-war voyage via Rio de Janeiro to Boma . On January 11, 1943, the British Admiralty took over the training ship and put it under the British flag as a submarine depot ship to Freetown , Sierra Leone , where it remained in service with the British until August 1945.
post war period
After the end of the war, the ship ended its return voyage to its home country on January 18, 1947, towing the Empire Mary . Only in the following year was the ship returned to Belgium and subjected to an overhaul and modernization, in which Great Britain contributed financially in recognition of the services rendered. On January 20, 1951, the Mercator finally resumed school operations at sea. The ship remained in service until August 1960. During his active service time, the training sailor undertook a total of 41 training trips, on which he performed both scientific tasks and also took part in social events. For example, the Mercator competed in the tall ship races from Torbay to Lisbon (1956), from Brest to the Canary Islands (1958) or from Oslo to Ostend (1960).
A remarkable peculiarity of the Mercator is the fact that in the years of her active time she was led by only two captains. R. Van de Sande led the ship from its commissioning until 1955, after which Captain R. Ghys took over the command until 1960.
The Mercator was launched from 1961 before it was moored as a museum ship in the old “Second Trading Dock” in Ostend in 1963. In her honor, the port basin with its berth was renamed “Mercatordock”.
literature
- Schäuffelen, Otmar: The last great sailing ships . Verlag Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 1994, ISBN 3-7688-0860-2 , p. 31/32 .
Web links
- Official site of Mercator (English)
- Mercator at Onroerend erfgoed , the Flanders Monument Agency (Dutch)
Coordinates: 51 ° 13 '36.9 " N , 2 ° 55' 11.9" E