Sailing ship Chersonesos. The frigate that almost died in Ukraine took part in the Black Sea regatta. From Cape Horn to Comatosis

Hello! My report on a significant event, which was dedicated to the 200th anniversary of I.K. Aivazovsky: three-masted training ship "Khersones". The sailboat arrived from Sevastopol, and an open gangway day took place for all guests and residents of the city. The ship stayed in the Feodosia seaport for only a day, but managed to take on board a large number of guests.

After the collapse of the Union, the ship went to Ukraine and was used as a cruise ship for five years. Thanks to tourists from Germany, Belgium and France, it was possible to maintain the ship and train cadets of Ukrainian universities and schools. After 2005, funding stopped completely.

“When we took over this ship, we saw a nightmare there. The ship's mechanisms are completely destroyed and require complete repairs. The mainmast is completely rotted to the ground, so a new one will have to be built. We are completely replacing the galley, the entire navigation system and the mainmast. The only thing that is well preserved there are the cabins,” the head of Rosmorport stated in 2015.

In 2016, the frigate began a new life. A year earlier, having freed itself from a ten-year “imprisonment” in the Kerch port, where it was laid up, “Khersones” changed its home port to Sevastopol. Specialists from many regions of Russia and other countries came to the restoration work. The volume of financing exceeded 150 million rubles. After the reconstruction, the legendary sailing ship has already been on its first training voyage, participated in a regatta and a naval parade on Navy Day. The captain of the sailboat is Dmitry Teslenko.

There were no excursions on the ship, so I had to ask the cadets about everything. The sailboat was built in 1989 in Gdansk, Poland, the original name was “Alexander Green”. The three-masted frigate is the last of six sailing ships commissioned by the Soviet Union. Control of 26 sails is manual. The engines are used during storms, as well as for entering and leaving the port. The width of the sailboat is 14 m, the length is a little more than 100 m. The height of the masts reaches 51 m, the speed of the ship is 12 knots. At the revived “Chersonese,” cadets from various military schools study and practice, and sometimes they conduct excursions for visitors.

Why is Chersonesus legendary? Here is a reference from Wikipedia:

In 1997, the sailboat became the first and last Ukrainian ship to round Cape Horn under sail, with the engines turned off. It should be borne in mind that the previous time a sailboat of this class rounded Cape Horn was in 1949. It was the barque "Pamir". Since then, no one has been able to repeat the feat of “Chersonese”. All other large sailing ships were forced to turn on their engines to pass through the Drake Passage.

Now it will run from Sevastopol to Sochi, along the Black Sea coast.

On the day of the open gangway, July 28, 2017, the head of Crimea S.V. boarded the sailing ship. Aksenov and the city leadership, after which, from 14:00 to 20:00, everyone was able to admire the magnificent ship. The ship's crew greeted their guests very hospitably: they observed order from the sidelines, creating a friendly atmosphere.

In eight months, the sailboat's decks were replaced, masts, yards and electronics, surface and underwater parts were repaired, the ship was painted, and new modern equipment was purchased.

Due to the large number of visitors, queues formed. The largest crowd of people was on the captain's bridge near the helm and bell.

Visitors studied the sailboat with genuine interest, although there was one elderly couple who was very amused by the family scene.

She: - Why did you bring me here? Why did we stand in this line, because there’s nothing to see here!

He was silent the whole time.

She: - You said that they would ride on a sailboat, I only came here for this...

Luxurious sailboat! We wish all the cadets successful studies, and the frigate many years and seven feet under the keel!

Visiting rules

If you have the opportunity to board the Chersonese on the day of the “open gangway”:

be sure to take your passport with you
birth certificate for children

Photocopies, driver's licenses, pension certificates, student and other documents are NOT accepted!

It is prohibited to carry sharp objects or any glass containers.

Not allowed:

unaccompanied minors
persons under the influence of alcohol
citizens with pets

Thank you for attention!

The frigate “Khersones” took part in the SCF Black Sea Regatta of Large Sailboats 2016. Few people believed that the training sailing ship could be restored after 10 years of inactivity and slow destruction. But it happened. The Lenta.ru correspondent went through the second stage of the Black Sea regatta from Novorossiysk to Sochi with the Chersonese, meeting the crew members and the ship’s captain, Dmitry Teslenko, in the conditions of a real race and storm.

Large sailboats

Large sailboats are piece goods. There are very few of them left in the world. Maintaining a large sailboat is a prestigious, but also expensive pleasure, which not every country with access to the sea can afford. In the USSR, the fleet of training sailing ships was one of the best in the world both in terms of the composition of ships and their quality. After the collapse of the Union, three large sailing ships (the bark “Comrade”, the frigates “Khersones” and “Friendship”) went to Ukraine. Russia received the barges “Sedov” and “Kruzenshtern” and three frigates “Mir”, “Nadezhda” and “Pallada”.

All five Russian large sailing ships are alive and well - they sail the seas and oceans, are pleasing to the eye, participate in regattas, and cadets of Russian sailors constantly undergo practice on them. But the fate of Ukrainian sailing ships turned out to be sad.

The bark "Comrade" (Kherson) fell into complete disrepair, after long and painful negotiations it was bought by a group of German enthusiasts and turned into a floating museum of the city of Stralsund, which was its original home port (in 1933).

The frigate “Druzhba” (Odessa) was converted into a cruise yacht in 1992, carried tourists from Barcelona to the Balearic Islands, gradually fell into disrepair and has been laid up in the Military Harbor of Odessa for 12 years. To preserve a sailboat, immediate and significant investments are needed, but its owners have neither the money nor the desire.

The frigate "Khersones" (Kerch) has been laid up in Kerch since 2006, where it grew into the silt, fell apart and was stolen. In the spring of 2014, the sailing ship, along with its home port and the entire Crimean Peninsula, became part of Russia. In September 2016, for the first time in 10 years, “Khersones” went to sea to take part in the “SCF Black Sea Regatta of Large Sailboats 2016”.

History of the frigate "Khersones"

The three-masted training frigate "Khersones" is the third of five sailing ships of the same type ordered by the Soviet Union from Poland. The prototype for the entire series was the “Gift of Youth” (home port - Gdynia), launched in 1982. By the way, the Polish frigate continues to be actively used and the author has seen it more than once in different ports of the world.

Initially, it was planned to name the new frigate “Alexander Green”, but it was launched as “Chersonese”, in honor of the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus'. One of those who received the sailing ship in 1989 in Gdansk was the current sailing boatswain of the Chersonese, Stanislav Maksimenko:

The ship was built at the famous Lenin shipyard in Gdansk. Now she's gone. Once we came to Gdansk, I wanted to go to the factory, but I couldn’t even find a place. We then took part in everything ourselves: when the car was installed, and when the masts were put up, the tanks were boiled, cabins were made, plumbing was made..., in general, we took over the ship in parts and the whole thing.

Three-masted training frigate "Khersones"

Year of construction: 1989, Gdansk, Poland.
Home port: Sevastopol.
Displacement: 2987 tons.
Length: 108.6 meters.
Mast height: foresail - 49.5, mainsail - 51, mizzen - 46.5 meters.
Standard number of sails: 26, area - 2770 square meters
Crew: 46 people.
Number of cadets: up to 130 people.

There is a legend among sailors that during construction, the stern, originally planned for the Chersonese, went to the Mir, which was launched a little earlier (1988). The boatswain categorically rejects this version.

After launching, the ship was handed over to the Sevastopol PURP "Atlantika", which operated it until May 1991. The next owner of “Khersones” was the Kerch branch of the Kaliningrad Technological Institute of Fisheries and Economy of the former USSR. After the collapse of the Union, the sailing ship ended up in Ukraine, and no one else allocated money for its maintenance. The Kerch Maritime Technological Institute, which became an independent educational institution, entered into an agreement with the German company Inmaris. In exchange for the possibility of commercial operation of the sailing ship, the Germans assumed most of the costs of its repair and maintenance.

From Cape Horn to Comatosis

For almost a decade and a half, “Chersonese” carried German trainees (sea tourists) and Ukrainian cadets around the world.

The trains took up to 90 people, sometimes they couldn’t even put everyone in prison, only 10 people remained on the shore,” recalls boatswain Maksimenko. - We sailed around Europe and around Africa, sailed around Cape Horn.

Image: from the collection of Peter Kamenchenko

The passage of Cape Horn by the Chersonese under sail is another legendary story. Various sources write about this: “no one before”, “for the first time in a hundred years” and so on.

The truth is that in 1997, the Chersonese actually sailed around Cape Horn without turning on the engine, as other sailboats did before and after it. But…

Yes, we really went from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic under sail,” says boatswain Maksimenko. - True, at the end the wind turned completely sour, and we could hardly drag ourselves, and even if we had held the world record for the fastest passage, it would have been a little short.

For the passage through Cape Horn, the captain of the Chersonese, Mikhail Sukhina, was awarded an albatross. They say that a wooden albatross was also attached to the bow of the sailboat, but then disappeared somewhere.

In 2000, Inmaris, whose business was going well, re-equipped the Chersonese: the 12-berth cadets' quarters were turned into 4-berth cabins for tourists with toilets and showers, new ventilation and lighting were installed, and the interior of the ship was refinished. Later (in 2003) the body was repainted in a memorable red color. Prices for trainees have increased accordingly. For example, in 2005, a 10-day passage from Taormina (Italy) to Istanbul cost from 779 to 2129 euros, depending on the category of cabin.

This period of the sailing ship’s life is evidenced by German signs on the cabins and other rooms, German navigation books with maps and tables, and wall newspapers with many photographs that have survived to this day.

In December 2004, the “Orange Revolution” took place in Ukraine. It took the new government more than a year to lay hands on the sailing ship. In March 2006, when departure for the next voyage had already been registered, he was unexpectedly prohibited from going to sea. "Khersones" was sent to the lay-up of the Kerch port. The German side filed a lawsuit against Ukraine, hoping to recover the funds spent on re-equipping the ship. The process in the Hague court lasted more than three years, and as a result, Ukraine was ordered to pay Inmaris 4.8 million euros.

Everything could have been even worse, but there were decent people on the frigate’s crew who, all these years, took care of and protected the ship to the best of their ability. The soul of the crew of the sailing ship that fell into a coma was the foremast boatswain Zabrodsky. And only when the boatswain fell ill, the Khersones began to be gradually plundered, navigation equipment and machine parts were stolen...

Repair

After Crimea became part of Russia, Khersones, like two other training sailing frigates Mir and Nadezhda, was transferred to the balance sheet of Rosmorport. There was no way to repair the ship in Kerch; there was no suitable dock or necessary facilities. In October 2015, the Rosmorport icebreaker pulled the Khersones out to sea and took it to Sevastopol, where it was docked at a ship repair yard.

Everything looked very deplorable... - says Andrey Ivanov, 1st class sailor, instructor at the Poltava shipyard (St. Petersburg), who restored the Chersonesos in Sevastopol. - The building was in terrible condition, it was repaired by the Zvezdochka plant. They did great. I like that the boat was really completely dismantled: all the coverings were removed, everything was sandblasted twice. We felt responsible. And when he left the stocks - fresh paint, fresh deck, new rigging, new crew, new life... Like a phoenix bird resurrected! Literally lit up!

The renovation took eight months. On June 1, 2016, Rosmorport transferred the Khersones from the Kerch branch to the Sevastopol branch, the ship changed its registration and captain.

Video: Andrey Ivanov, 1st class sailor, instructor at the Poltava shipyard (St. Petersburg)

Four boatswains, a sailmaker and a captain

Dmitry Teslenko, captain of the Chersonese, says:

On June 1st I flew in to see what shape it was in. I saw it standing in the dock, white and painted. But, of course, there was still a lot of work: the masts were rusty, the rigging was rotten, the yards were removed and put on the pier, everything was cleaned, the rust was removed, the through rusts were cut out and re-welded, the propeller-rudder group was made... The boatswain from the Mir arrived to us at week, helped restore the running rigging. Thank them very much.
- And the team?
- I found a crew of nine people, including my old boatswain, with whom I sailed for 10 years on the Pallada. The second assistant remained from Kerch, the rest were already recruited in Sevastopol. They found a boatswain who worked here until 2010, the sailmaker remained, and that’s probably everyone who knows this ship.
- Did the others have no experience of sailing at all?
- Where?... Already before departure, two young sailors who sailed on the Mir and Sedov came to us as boatswains, they seemed like smart guys. So four boatswains, the sailmaker and I know the sails.
- Can people who have experience sailing on yachts be useful for large sailboats?
- I don’t think so, of course they have an understanding of the wind, but they can’t work with sails. They have a completely different style of work, and therefore their thinking is different.

Abroad? It depends...

Is the team now fully staffed?
- Yes, completely, according to the staffing schedule.
- What is the task facing “Khersones”, what should happen?
- We should have a training sailing ship.
- For which educational institution? For Crimean, Sevastopol, civilian, military?
- For all of Russia. Now we have on board cadets from the Moscow Institute of Water Transport and Sevastopol residents, guys from the Russian State University, Ushakovo students, Nakhimov students from different courses. And then they will come from Rostov, Novorossiysk...
-Where will you go?
- Here for a while.
- Between Sochi and Novorossiysk?
- Along the Black Sea.
- Can you go into neutral waters?
- There are no neutral waters on the Black Sea; there are economic zones divided between the coastal countries.
- But you won’t be allowed to go abroad for now?
- Well, it depends on which foreign country. If to Europe, then in the near future, probably yes, but I think it will be possible to go to Asia without any problems.
- How to pass the Bosphorus?
- The Turks are our friends...
- God forbid! They said that Putin personally agreed with Erdogan so that the Kruzenshtern would be allowed into the Black Sea regatta without unnecessary fees.
- So they will come to an agreement regarding us. And then there are Greece, Cyprus, Egypt - all our friends.

Returned home

So this whole story with sanctions doesn’t bother you much? The same Ukraine believes that its sailboat was stolen...
- They didn’t steal it, but returned it home.
- How do familiar captains of foreign ships react to your appointment?
- Congratulations and good luck.
- How did the organizers of Sails Training react to your participation in the Black Sea Regatta? There were no objections on their part?
- On the contrary, they are happy. They were on board and tried to persuade me to go to Varna. They promised to do everything for this. I replied that I couldn’t do it yet.
- Wouldn’t it be easier to change the name, resell it to another owner, then buy it back and thus legally “clean” the ship?
- I heard there were some such ideas, but they didn’t do anything about it. They fundamentally changed the home port from Kerch to Sevastopol, and not to Novorossiysk or Sochi, so that the Chersonesos would remain in Crimea. I think this is a very good decision. Sevastopol is a hero city, its history is closely connected with the Russian sailing fleet, and it should have its own large sailing ship.

We relax at sea

We are going around the frigate. At first glance, everything is clean and beautiful, but a closer look reveals that somewhere the deck flooring has turned black, somewhere there are not enough sails, and those that exist have patches...

What is the current condition of the sailboat?
- At work. New sails are already waiting for us in Sevastopol. They gave us a ride when we were already leaving, they didn’t have time to pick them up...
- And the cars?
- Everything is fine with the cars, we are now undergoing post-repair timing. Everything is at work. And what’s not in the works, we’ll do it when we arrive. The repairs were completed on September 11 and went to sea on the same day.

Tired?
- People worked very hard, of course, fatigue accumulated, but at sea we relax. Nobody believed that we would get out, even those who repaired us said that we wouldn’t get out until the New Year. But here we are, out...
- How many cadets are there now?
- 70 people.
- Not a little?
- Few. We need at least 90. 30 people per mast.
- And how does “Khersones” feel under sail, what does it feel like?
- It’s hard to say yet, we came here under a steep close-hauled wind. The cadets were not prepared, so they set the minimum number of sails. So far, only two straight sails and two jambs have been mastered: the foresail, the mainsail, the lower topsail and the staysail. This is all for the first time for us.

At its first regatta after its revival, “Khersones” performed excellently. In difficult weather conditions - wind gusting up to 20 meters per second and seas of force six - the frigate set all the sails it had and was third for a long time, letting only the Mir and Nadezhda go ahead. The cadets and team worked perfectly, making virtually no mistakes.

There is still a lot of work to be done on the Chersonese, but the main thing has already been done - the Russian fleet has received another excellent training sailing ship, and it has a future.

The most beautiful selfies – “Khersones” is one of the most “Instagrammable” objects. But in addition to its beauty, “Khersones” has many achievements and tasks.

The sailing training ship "Khersones" was built in 1989 in Poland at the Gdansk Lenin Shipyard. Initially named “Alexander Green”, but upon completion of construction, in honor of the 1000th anniversary of the baptism of Rus', it was renamed “Chersones”.

A modern three-masted frigate is a ship with a full square rig. In 1997, the sailboat gained fame by becoming the last ship to circumnavigate Cape Horn under sail with the engines turned off. Since then, no one has been able to repeat the feat of “Chersonese”. The Chilean Association presented the ship with a certificate of passage of Cape Horn, and the captain of the Chersonese, Mikhail Sukhin, was awarded the honorary title of Albatross.

From 2006 to 2015, the ship was in a long and forced stay in the port of Kerch; over such a long period, due to lack of funding, the technical condition of the sailing ship completely fell into disrepair.

In 2014, the new shipowner of the sailing ship “Khersones” was the Ministry of Transport of Russia, FSUE “Rosmorport”.

On October 9, 2015, the Khersones vessel was towed for repairs to the Sevastopol branch of the Zvezdochka shipbuilding center and was docked on December 10, 2015.

In June 2016, the renovation was completed. The ship has been returned to its original paint job. The shipowner decided that the vessel "Khersones" would be based in the port of Sevastopol.

Since August 2016, the sailing training ship "Khersones" begins to accept on board cadets of the State Maritime University named after Admiral F.F. Ushakov, branches and other maritime universities of Russia for sailing practice.

In September 2016, the sailing ship “Khersones”, for the first time since 2006, set off on its maiden voyage and took part in the international sailing regatta “SCF Black Sea Tall Ships Regatta - 2016”.

This time, the sailing ship took part in the educational and practical expedition “Crimean Around the World 2018” with the famous traveler Fyodor Konyukhov.

“Chersonese” appears quite often on the Yalta Embankment. Don't miss the opportunity to listen to a tour on the ship, walk around the deck, admire the main mast and, of course, take a selfie at sunset...

HISTORY OF THE SAILING SHIP “CHERSONES”

Sailing training ship "Khersones". Built in Poland at the Gdansk Lenin Shipyard in 1989. Initially named “Alexander Green”, but upon completion of construction, in honor of the 1000th anniversary of the baptism of Rus', it was renamed “Chersones”.

A modern three-masted frigate is a ship with a full square rig. It is one of a series of six ships of the same type (sisterships): “Dar Mlodziorzy”, “Friendship”, “Peace”, “Pallada” and “Nadezhda”. The vessels of this series are the fastest training sailboats according to the STI (Sail Training International) classification.

In 1997, the sailboat gained fame by becoming the last ship to circumnavigate Cape Horn under sail with the engines turned off. The previous sailing ship of the same class, Cape Horn, was completed in 1949. It was the barque "Pamir". Since then, no one has been able to repeat the feat of “Chersonese”. All other large sailing ships were forced to turn on their engines to pass Cape Horn.

The Chilean Association presented the ship with a certificate of passage of Cape Horn, and the captain of the Chersonese, Mikhail Ivanovich Sukhin, was awarded the honorary title of Albatross.

In 2003, the ship's hull was painted dark red, decorated with a stripe of sandy-golden ocher along the side and an ornament of the same color on the stern.

In 2014, the new shipowner of the sailing ship “Khersones” was the Ministry of Transport of Russia, FSUE “Rosmorport”.

On October 9, 2015, the Khersones vessel was towed for repairs to the Sevastopol branch of the Zvezdochka shipbuilding center and was docked on December 10, 2015. In June 2016, the repairs were completed. The ship was returned to its original painting. The shipowner decided that the vessel "Khersones" will be based in the port of Sevastopol.

From June 2016 to the present, the captain of the vessel is Dmitry Sergeevich Teslenko.

About the shipowner: The Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Rosmorport" promotes the development of the maritime transport infrastructure of Russia and increasing the competitiveness of Russian seaports through the effective operation, maintenance and development of federal property assigned to the enterprise in seaports. Takes an active part in the implementation of federal target programs for the development of maritime transport of the Russian Federation. Provides services to ensure navigation safety in the waters of seaports and on the approaches to them.

The world practice of training specialists for work at sea provides for cadets to undergo mandatory practical training in the conditions of an operating vessel. In this regard, maritime states consider it necessary to have specialized training vessels in their fleet. A special pride in the training fleet of a higher maritime educational institution is the presence of an operating sailboat.

In the post-Soviet space, the training fleet is represented by the following sailing vessels:
"Kruzenshtern"- Baltic State Academy of Fishing Fleet, Kaliningrad;
"Sedov"- Murmansk State Technical University.
"World"- State Maritime Academy named after. Admiral S.O. Makarova, St. Petersburg.
"Pallada"- Far Eastern State Technical Fisheries University, Vladivostok.
"Hope"- Far Eastern State Maritime University, Vladivostok.
"Friendship"- Odessa National Maritime Academy.
"Chersonese"- Kerch State Marine Technological University.

One of the excellent representatives of the USSR sailing fleet is the Chersonesos, a three-masted training frigate currently owned by the Kerch State Technological University, Ukraine. The frigate "Chersonese" is the last in a series of six sailing ships built by order of the USSR leadership in Poland at the Stocznia Gdanska shipyard in 1989.

The same type of sea sailing ships: “Dar Molodezhi”, “Druzhba”, “Mir”, “Pallada” and “Nadezhda” were built with the aim of introducing educational practice in maritime educational institutions. The ships were located in the ports of Gdansk, Odessa, Sevastopol, St. Petersburg and Vladivostok. When the frigate "Chersonese" was built, the ship's hull was painted white.

The sea sailing vessel did its job perfectly. Many cadets underwent maritime practice, after which they boldly went to sea, already being captains and navigators of other ships and vessels.

Training sailing ships are deliberately subsidized training laboratories for future sailors. It is normal in world practice for state financial support for the operation of such courts.

There are two such ships in Ukraine - “Druzhba” and “Khersones”. The sailing ship of the Odessa Academy “Friendship” is in a difficult financial situation and has been in the port of Odessa for many years with no chance of continuing its voyage.

“Khersones” for many years, including until 2006, provided students of Kerch University and other maritime educational institutions of the State Fisheries Committee with full practical training.
The main specialties that require a training vessel are navigation, operation of ship power plants, electrical equipment and ship automation.

The qualification characteristics of these specialties are developed in accordance with the requirements of the international maritime convention STCW-78/95 (STCW-78/95), and the curricula cover almost the entire list of requirements necessary for the certification and certification of a watch officer, a watch engineer and a ship's electrical engineer. Preparation includes, in addition to theoretical, also practical classes, training on board the ship during swimming practices.

The most important requirement for working on a ship as an officer is that the graduate must have at least 12 months of documented sailing experience (with a training watch under the supervision of a certified specialist). To obtain such experience, the curriculum provides for a number of practices. UPS "Khersones" is a unique base for the practice of students, especially junior students. Work on deck and operations with sail rigs are an excellent school for future work at sea. In senior years, the process of practical training of students is ensured by carrying out training watches on the navigation bridge or in the engine room under the guidance of highly qualified navigators, ship mechanics and university teachers.

"Khersones" last flight in 2006

A large number of students undergo practical training at the same time. On the "Khersones" there are 6 cabins with 12 seats, a canteen, a technical library, classrooms: there is a training chart room with all the necessary navigation equipment. Operation of the sailing vessel, which has 26 sails with a total area of 2771 m, is possible only if there is a crew of at least 40 qualified specialists and 70 cadets on deck. Manual sail control involves work at heights of up to 50 meters by young people who are medically fit and have the skills for such work. Every year, up to 350 students of KSMTU, as well as cadets of the Odessa and Kherson maritime fisheries schools, had internships on the Khersones.

The decommissioning of "Khersones" in 2006 led to a number of problems with the organization of the above practices due to the fact that shipowners are reluctant to accept junior students for practical training due to the lack of primary maritime documents, and on "Khersones" the university administration provided for the issuance of such documents upon completion of the internship. Practice on ships for non-training purposes significantly reduces the quality of practical training because the ship primarily performs a commercial task, and ship specialists have neither the time nor experience to train cadets. Each non-training vessel can accommodate no more than 3-4 people for practical training at a time. The voyage schedules of such ships never coincide with the schedules of university practices, either in terms of timing or duration. All this leads to difficulties in fulfilling the schedules of the educational process.

"Chersonese", in particular, had one more mission - it represented the country at various maritime competitions, festivals, and represented the pride and flag of Ukraine as a maritime state. From 1992 to 2006, UPS “Khersones” took an active part in 8 prestigious sailing competitions and international regattas in France, Germany and won cups and naval glory for Ukraine in European countries.

"Chersonese" is the only ship in the world that over the past 100 years has circumnavigated Cape Horn (South America) without using engines - only using sails. Among sailors this is considered a real feat. In 1997, the Chilean Association awarded the ship a certificate of passage of Cape Horn, and the captain of the Chersonese, Mikhail Sukhina, was awarded the world-honored title of Albatross.

For three years, the most authoritative Ukrainian vessel has been stationed in the Kerch sea fishing port. But until now, the university administration regularly receives invitations for the sailboat to participate in various international regattas. In Germany there is a society called “Friends of Chersonesos”. -Khersones" is loved and remembered throughout the world. Therefore, we appeal to the government of Ukraine with a request to move forward with the resumption of operation of the Chersonesos and return to the university the opportunity to produce maritime specialists of decent qualifications and quality. “Chersonese” is the only operating sailing ship in Ukraine, and in our opinion, it is also its national treasure.

For reference:
In recent years, the Russian training sailing vessel Kruzenshtern has increasingly represented Russia at various foreign events. In particular, the Kruzenshtern remained in the port of Vancouver throughout the entire period of the 2010 Olympic Games in Canada.

Numerous meetings with the participation of Russian athletes took place on board.

On December 1, 2009, the barque “Kruzenshtern” set off on the second stage of the International Transatlantic Expedition dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the Great Victory. The 90th anniversary of the formation of the Russian fishing industry and the 60th anniversary of the first herring expedition. The bark's voyage ends in May 2010. There are 120 cadets from various maritime educational institutions on board the Kruzenshtern.

The bark "Kruzenshtern" called at the port of the capital of the 2010 Winter Olympics, Vancouver, where it provided its board to support the Russian team. Throughout the Olympics, the barque remained in the port. Various actions and events were held on board in support of Russian athletes. Entrance to the ship was open to everyone. Bark represented both Kaliningrad and Russia as a whole. There were 3 exhibitions on board, and the cadets and crew of the ship were in the support group for Russian athletes. After the Olympics, the barque continued its transatlantic voyage. He returned through the Panama Canal to the Atlantic Ocean, where he participated in events in Cuba, Venezuela and other countries.

When the HVS "Khersones" was afloat, life was also in full swing around it: meetings were organized on board, various events were held, and cadets underwent swimming practice. NAF "Khersones" represented our state in many regions of the globe. At each parking port, the cadets marched along the embankment in a parade march. The National Flag of Ukraine was raised and the National Anthem sounded. The cadets saw the world and acquired excellent maritime skills. A professional, well-coordinated crew provided the cadets with unique knowledge and ability to handle sailing rigging, vessel equipment, pilotage skills, etc.

Everyone knows about the problem of the Chersonese: today it is docked in the port of Kerch, and instead of training and practicing cadets, it accumulates debts. I would like to hope that the Ukrainian government will make a wise decision regarding Chersonese, which is the pride of our maritime country and can again become a base for training cadets.

Alexander Gadeev,
Vice-Rector of Kerch
state maritime
technological university.

more about the sailboat... http://kgmtu.com.ua/khersones