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Schoolship Amerigo Vespucci |
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"You are the most beautiful Ship in the world", this was the message once radioed to the bridge
of the "Amerigo Vespucci" Italian Navy schoolship. A three masts sailing ship, with square
sails and jibs, the "Vespucci" is for sure one of the most well known Ambassadors of Italy in
the major foreign harbor towns.
Representing Italy and its Navy is only one of the ship tasks, her main role being training:
helmsmen and, at the end of the school year, Officer Cadets who conclude their first year at the Livorno Naval Academy,
embark on the "Vespucci".
Maneuvering sheets and halyards made with vegetable ropes and
hemp sails, sleeping in hammocks arranged every night in classrooms,
some 100 young men every year learn to love and to respect the
sea. They are the same that a few years later we will find in
combat and information centers equipped with the most sophisticated
electronic instruments, or as pilots in jets and helicopters,
dipped in the reality of the most modern technologies which
seem thousands of miles away from the slow sailing of the "Vespucci",
but which have in common the main factor: the scenario in which
they operate, that is the sea.
Future Italian Navy officers start their sea life on board the
"Vespucci" since the early thirties: the ship was launched in
1931 at the Royal Arsenal in Castellamare di Stabia, near Naples.
82.38 m (270.28 ft.) long, 100.5 m (329.72 ft.) considering
the bowsprit, 15.56 m (51.05 ft.) wide and 6.65 m (21.82 ft.)
tall, with a seven meters (22.97 ft.) draught, the "Vespucci"
has a full load displacement of 4,145 m.tons.
Her hull is build with steel planking riveted to the ribs while
the deck is covered in teakwood planks. The ship has three main
decks, plus bow quarter deck and stern bridge deck; the latter
hosts Officers living spaces as well as the Captain's "Council
Hall" which doors open on stern balcony on which we can read
in golden letters the ship name. Details are particularly well
cared of, and the same applies to the sail rigging: propulsion
is insured by the 27 hemp sails which total surface is of about
3,000 sq. meters (32,293 sq.ft.), while some 30 km (18.6 miles)
of vegetable cables of different diameters are used for current
handling.
When sails are in use steerage is normally provided by the stern
manual rudder station, equipped with four steering wheels activated
by eight helmsmen; on the bridge we find the electro-hydraulic
bow rudder station, used when sailing on engines, while in the
same structure we find the chart-room used for Cadets training.
The "Vespucci" has 11 rescue boats, four of which powered by
rows or sails, known as "palinscherni"; by time to time Cadets
carry out competitions with them or, following an old tradition,
they tow the "Vespucci" with arms-power! There is obviously
an engine power plant, in the form of two diesel engines of
1,500 hp each linked to two generators which power an electric
motor linked to a four-blade propeller.
Between tradition and electronics - the ship does not lack the
most updated detection and navigation systems - the "Vespucci"
complement of 276 men, augmented in summertime by some 100 Cadets
from the Naval Academy, bring each year the "old lady" and the
Italian flag, with the symbols of the four Marine Republics,
on the seas of all the world.
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