The 2005 International Festival of the Sea
The fifth International Festival of the Sea will take place in Portsmouth from June 30th to July 3rd will be one of the most eclectic and prestigious events to take place this summer. Hosted at the historic dockyard at the HM Naval Base in Portsmouth, the festival will feature a daily 12 hour programme of great entertainment, international cuisine, historical reenactments and the chance to see (and board) the most spectacular Festival fleet ever assembled. In this, the 200th anniversary year of the Battle of Trafalgar, a broadside fired from HMS Victory will get this year’s event off to an explosive start. The International Fleet Review (the first one since 1977) will precede the Festival and many of the visiting ships will sail into the naval base, and be opened for the public to explore at their leisure.
The Festival begins with the International Fleet Review on June 28th, at Spithead, the first since 1977, followed immediately by what will be Europe's largest maritime extravaganza, the International Festival of the Sea, in Portsmouth. Vessels attending this years Festival include:
Brazil - Cisne Branco
Bulgaria - Kaliakra
Columbia - Gloria
Denmark - Georg Stage
France - Belle Poule,La Recouvrance, Le Renard, Mutin
Germany - Asta
India - Tarangini
Indonesia - Dewarucci
Ireland - Asgard II
Italy - Amerigo Vespucci
Netherlands - Artemis, Europa, Mercedes, Swan fan Makkum, Urania
Norway - Sorlandet
Oman - Shabab Oman
Poland - Dar Mlodziezy, Iskra, Pogoria
Portugal - Sagres
Russia - Mir
Serbia & Montenegro - Jadran
UK - Grand Turk, Kaskelot, Lord Nelson, Matthew, Phoenix, Prince William, Royalist, Tenacious
Uruguay - Captain Miranda
USA - Eagle, Pride of Baltimore
Beyond the ships themselves, the Festival’s unique character is bought to life by the thousands of artists, entertainers, musicians, and performers who are specially commissioned to help create a truly extraordinary entertainment line-up. The daily 12 hour entertainment programme includes 4 stages of live music from salsa to shanty, jazz to world music. The rest of the line up features interactive areas, exhibitions for models, figureheads and all things nautical, traditional crafts and skills displays, model boat demonstrations, traditional entertainments, and jaw dropping combat displays which will take place in a specially constructed arena whilst the Navy, Army and Air Force combine on land, sea and air.
One of these impressive visitors is the Italian Navy sail-training ship Amerigo Vespucci. Although built of steel and not launched until 1931 this big square-rigger was designed to resemble a wooden sailing warship of the nineteenth century. With her galleries at the stern and her black and white hull, the Amerigo Vespucci will seem at home close to HMS Victory in her dry dock in Portsmouth Dockyard and will add to the Nelsonian atmosphere of this International Festival of the Sea and the commemorations to mark the two-hundredth anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar.
This steel hulled clipper ship, whose name means "White Swan", was launched from the Damen Shipyard in Amsterdam, Netherlands on August 4, 1999. She was designed using the lines of a 19th century clipper ship and commisioned by the Brazilian Navy to commemorate Brazil's 500th anniversary. Following her launch, she began her maiden voyage under the command of Captain Jose Sadi Cantuaria. Following the original course used by the Portugese navigator Pedro Alvares Cabral, five hundred years earlier, the captain brought the vessel across the Atlantic to her new home in Porto Seguro, Brazil. She arrived on April 22, 2000, to a crowd of over a million spectators, to celebrate the anniversary of Brazilian discovery.
The original Iskra,a gaff riged schooner named the Vlissingen ,was built 1917 by G. Muller, Foxhol, Holland.Owned by the Dutch firm, Zeevarts Maatschappij, she carried cargo in the coastal waters of the Netherlands. She often sailed to London and the south coast of England. In 1925 she was sold to A. Kennedy & Son, Ltd. of Glasgow who renamed her the St. Blane. In 1927 she was sold to Poland and renamed Iskra, for use as a sail training ship. When WWII broke out she was moved from her current location in North Africa to serve as a cargo carrier for the British out of Gibraltar. At the end of the war she was returned to Poland and served as a sail training ship until 1977.