Maritime Practice International (2024)

11/03/2022

The schooner Noorderlicht in Svalbard🇳🇴
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Photo: swanexpeditions.com
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10/03/2022

Our happy trainees on the tall ship Amazone. Antarctica, January 2022📍
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Photo: Nail Sayfi, Alexander Tolchev
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09/03/2022

We offer a chance to have a sail training voyage to high latitudes of the Arctic and Antarctica in the most ancient, beautiful and environmentally friendly way – under sail.
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Let's meet the fleet:
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🔹The Dutch tall ship Wylde Swan — the largest topsail schooner in the world. She operates in Greenland and Iceland.
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🔹The Dutch tall ship Noorderlicht is a famous Arctic schooner that sails mostly in Svalbard, Northern and Southern Norway.
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🔹The Finnish Schooner Amazone is an ice-class sailing ship that operates in the high latitudes of Antarctica.
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These ships are fitted with all the modern technology and safety equipment for operating in Polar regions.
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Click the link: maritime-practice.com/voyages_all to see all the upcoming voyages and get the sailing experience of a lifetime🌊⛵️
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Photo: swanexpeditions.com, Kirill Tikhonov
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07/03/2022

FAQ. Sail training voyages on tall ships:
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📌Can I participate if I have no experience at all?
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No previous experience is required. We we’ll teach you everything you need to know to sail safely in the first 2 days of your voyage.
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📌 Who can take part in the voyage?
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We welcome all male and female trainees. You have to be 18 and older to take part independently. Children aged 12 and older can also join us when accompanied by their parents.
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📌Is it safe?
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Safety is our key priority. All of the crew have a broad experience at sea and are in possession of all the required diplomas and competences. On the first day of the trip the crew will give a thorough safety briefing on how to behave in case of fire or flooding. You will be taught how to put on a lifejacket, a safety harness and much more.
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📌Will I have an opportunity to explore ashore during the voyage?
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Yes. Each ship is equipped with inflatable landing boats known as Zodiacs. These easy to navigate boats are used for cruising and landings, and let us visit the most interesting places ashore.
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📌How to book a sail training voyage?
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Leave a request at maritime-practice.com, write us via WhatsApp +357 22 232381 or email us at [email protected]📩
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To book your place, you need to pay a 50% deposit within 3 days of receiving your invoice and the remaining 50% must be paid 2 months before the start of the voyage.
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Let us know, if you have questions in the comments below⬇️
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Photo: George Eliseev
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06/03/2022

🐧8 facts about penguins:
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📌Scientists don't know exactly how many species of penguin live on the planet. At the moment the number is between 14 and 18, depending on how they are classified.
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📌Penguins are not only found in Antarctica. They, of course, inhabit the coastal waters of Antarctica and its islands, but also those of New Zealand, South Australia, South Africa, the entire coast of South America from the Falkland Islands to Peru, and the Galapagos Islands near the equator.
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📌The largest penguin (the emperor penguin) is 130 cm tall and weighs 40 kg. The smallest (little, or blue penguin) is 40 cm tall and weighs 1.5 kg. The most numerous species is the Adelie penguin and the rarest is the yellow-eyed penguin, endemic to New Zealand.
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📌Only 4 species of penguin nest in Antarctica — the emperor and Adelie penguins live in the waters and ice around the mainland, while the chinstrap and gentoo penguins live on the Antarctic Peninsula.
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📌Penguins set records for 'flying' underwater. The emperor penguins can reach speeds of up to 40km/h and descend to depths of 500m, staying there for 21 minutes.
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📌The penguins have an excellent vision — they can see better underwater.
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📌The penguins of Antarctica often gather in large groups, moving from the centre to the edges of them to stay warm during the polar winter. Temperatures inside such a group can reach +35°C when the air temperatures are as low as -21°C.
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📌The black and white colour of the penguins is not for beauty but for utility. When swimming in the water, the penguin cannot be seen by predators, neither from above on a dark background, nor from below on a light one.
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Photographs of the sail training voyage to Antarctica in January 2022 by Nail Sayfi.
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05/03/2022

The history of Svalbard is full of fascinating twists and turns. Thanks to its geographical location, mild climate, biodiversity and natural resources, many different cultures flourished here for centuries and many countries had their interest in developing this land.
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Let's go through the major milestones of the history of Svalbard:
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📌 It is unknown who were the first people to see the pointed peaks of the archipelago and set their foot on this cold shore. Historians have speculated that by the 12th century Pomors, Vikings and even Portuguese sailors reached Svalbard, but there’s no hard evidence to support that.
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📌 However, we know who occupied the archipelago 380 million years ago. Svalbard was situated much further to the south then, it was covered in tropical forest and inhabited by dinosaurs. The fossils of the ancient world are now being found in the archipelago so often that you can even take them to the mainland. Paleontologists discovered many new species here. You have to watch your step as you get on this land — you are bound to come across a stone with the imprint of a stone flower!
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📌 1596. Willem Barentsz was the first person to discover the archipelago — he saw the mountains and named them Spitse Bergen and then described his discovery in the diaries of the Dutch expedition which got to the region looking for the way to China.
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📌 1604 — whalers, first Dutch, then English, French and others, descend on Spitsbergen. Over the next 250 years, whaling fleets kill walruses, whales and seals and fight for the new waters. They also invented many new ways to hunt whales and extract blubber (whale oil).
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To be continued⚓️
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Photo: swanexpeditions.com
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04/03/2022

Zodiac cruising in Antarctica❄️
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📍Sail training voyage to Antarctica on the schooner Amazone, January 2022.
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Photo: Nail Sayfi
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09/02/2022

Let’s take a closer look at the tall ship Wylde Swan⚓️
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Right now she is getting ready for our sail training voyages in Greenland this summer. Click on the link to read more: en-sea-practice.com/greenland_expedition_eng ⬅️
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Photo: swanexpeditions.com
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05/02/2022

The Polish tall ship Fryderyk Chopin⚓️
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Photo:
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02/02/2022

Our love for the Arctic led us to a new polar destination: Maritime Practice sets sail for Svalbard❄️⛵️
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Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. It is said to be the entire Arctic in miniature: you can find polar bears, walruses and birds' colonies there. Let alone glaciers, icebergs, rocky mountains and the blooming tundra.
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Svalbard is also the most accessible Arctic. There are regular flights from Oslo and Tromsø, that make the archipelago very popular with tourists. But we want to go further and explore Svalbard on the famous Arctic schooner Noorderlicht to reach the most beautiful locations by water.
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There will only be 3 sail training voyages this year:
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🔹28 May – 4 June 2022
🔹4 – 14 June 2022
🔹 14 – 24 June 2022
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❗️As from 26 January 2022, the vaccination is not required to enter Norway, but you have to provide 2 PCR tests and fill in the online form. The entry regulations are subject to change, but we are monitoring the situation daily and will inform you of any changes as soon as possible.
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That means there are no obstacles to make your dream come true!
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Learn more:
en-sea-practice.com/svalbard_11 ⬅️
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Photo: swanexpeditions.com
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31/01/2022

Polar sailing⛵️❄️
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📍The tall ship Noorderlicht in Svalbard, Norway.
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Photo:
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27/01/2022

The voyage to Antarctica on the schooner Amazone in January 2022🇦🇶⛵️❄️
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Let us know in the comments below if you want to get the description of the voyages in 2023⬇️
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Photo: Sayfi Nail
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25/01/2022

The name of the most acclaimed nautical tool “sextant” originates from the Latin “one-sixth” as the sextant’s arc measures 1/6 of a circle — 60°.
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The sextant is used to determine the angle between the horizon and a celestial body (the Sun, the Moon or the star) and using these measurements to find latitude and longitude.
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Sextants have been used in navigation from as early as the beginning of the XVIII century. It’s not quite clear who was the first inventor: the principle was found in the works of Isaac Newton, then around 1731-1733 the English mathematician John Hadley and the American optician and inventor Thomas Godfrey claimed an invention of octant — the prototype of sextant with the arc of 45°.
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A sextant consists of a frame, 2 mirrors, a sighting telescope, sun shades, a graduated scale and a drum gauge. The mirror system allows measuring angles up to 120°. To find your position you’ll also need an accurate clock and some tables.
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When you look through the telescope eyepiece at a celestial body, you see two images superimposed on each other; one image of what is straight ahead of you and one of what is reflected by the upper mirror. When the two images coincide, you read the angle from the scale. When sextants are made, they have in-built errors. They are checked and a table of errors issued and fixed into the sextant’s box.
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A sextant can also be used in the desert, or anywhere on land, by using an artificial horizon, a completely horizontal mirror. The resulting angle has to be halved so only an altitude of up to 60°can be measured. You can’t use this method at sea because of the ship’s movement.
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In the past, when the ship was chasing or was being chased by another ship, the sextant was used to measure the angle of the mast top from the horizon to find out if the ship was getting closer or not and how quickly. You can see that in practice in a good old film “Master and Commander — Far side of the World” starring Russel Crow.
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Knowing how to use a sextant can be really useful as it can’t fail like all the modern electronic devices and GPS. And remember: navigators are never lost they are just temporarily unaware of their position!
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Photo: , wikipedia.org
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23/01/2022

The tall ship Atyla at the Baltic Regatta 2021♠️⚓️
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Photo: .stella
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21/01/2022

In 2021 “Maritime Practice” became a member of AECO (the Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators).
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So, what is AECO and what does it mean to be a member?
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AECO is an international organisation for expedition cruise operators working in the Arctic. It was founded in 2003 with its main purpose being to protect the Arctic region from environmental and other damage the tourism can cause.
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AECO aims at managing environmentally friendly, responsible and safe tourism in both vulnerable and dangerous Arctic region.
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The area of the Association’s responsibility covers the regions north of 60 degrees north latitude. The core areas are Iceland, Svalbard, Greenland, Arctic Canada and the Russian Arctic National Park.
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The Association developed a number of the easy-to-use Guidelines for its members.
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These Guidelines include the rules of conduct for all the tourists visiting the region, the information about how to protect Arctic wildlife and plants, how to combat plastic pollution of the oceans and the advice to visitors on how to behave when visiting small communities in remote areas.
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We are very proud to become a part of Association as we truly support its effort to protect the Arctic environment, historical and cultural heritage.
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During our voyages we provide our trainees both with the information about the environmental issues and how we all can help to eliminate them by behaving responsibly and participating in the “citizen science” initiatives.
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Having joined the AECO, we’re now also a part of a great community of the polar cruise operators who always support each other and aim to keep the tourism in the Arctic safe for both the tourists and the region.
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Photo:
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13/01/2022

Our first expedition to Antarctica on the schooner Amazone is over⛵️🇦🇶
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19 days, 1650 nautical miles, storms and calms, whales and penguins, icebergs and ice fields. The Drake Passage, Cape Horn and Ushuaia.
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Antarctica under sail is incredible! Can’t wait to share the first photographs with you🔥
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Photo: Alexander Tolchev
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08/01/2022

The Spanish ship “Nuestra Senora de la Santisima Trinidad” (the name translates to “Our Lady of the Holy Trinity”) was one of the most heavily armed ships of her time — if not the heaviest.
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The “Santisima Trinidad” was designed by Irish naval architect Matthew Mullan. Built in Havana (Cuba) in 1768-1769, the ship had 3 decks and 112 guns which made her larger and more heavily armed than the British “Victory” (the flagship of the Royal Navy at the time).
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Later, the number of guns was increased to 140 and the 4th deck was added making the ship quite a dangerous opponent. All that came at a cost: the “Santisima Trinidad” was very heavy and quite hard to manoeuvre as her sails didn’t respond to light winds. The sailors called her “El Ponderoso” which in Spanish means “the ponderous” as a pun on “El Poderoso” – “the mighty”. The vessel was 61 m long with the displacement of 4,950 tons and carried over 1,000 people and she was more a psychological tool for the Spanish fleet than anything else — her grandeur was supposed to frighten the enemies and keep them away.
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In 1779 Spain declared war on Great Britain, with France as its ally. The “Santisima Trinidad” served as the Spanish flagship from the beginning of that war. Some of her service was successful — she could be seen haul over 50 British ships in the English Channel but the Great Siege of Gibraltar in 1782 was failed by the Spanish fleet.
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In February of 1797 the ship was considerably damaged in the Battle of Cape St Vincent in Portugal and nearly escaped capture by the British. She had to retreat to the safe Spanish waters for repairs and was almost captured by the British frigate “HMS Terpsichore” on the way but again managed to avoid that.
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The last battle for the “Santisima Trinidad” was the famous Battle of Trafalgar on October 21st 1805. Due to her bulkiness and position near the French flagship “Bucentaure”, the “Santisima Trinidad” was attacked by several British ships at once, lost her mast and had to surrender.
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She was scuttled by her British captors not far from Cadiz. The wreck of the ship hasn’t been found yet as all the attempts to positively identify various wreckage near Cadiz failed so far.
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Photo: wikipedia.org
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05/01/2022

✨⛵️🌟🎄
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Photo: unknown
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03/01/2022

Many Christmas traditions go back to Victorian times, and the custom of sending Christmas cards is one of them.
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The first Christmas card as we know it now was sent in 1843 in the UK. It was thought up by Sir Henry Cole, a civil servant famous for his innovations in communications and education. The invention was meant to facilitate a long existing tradition to write lengthy holiday letters to friends and family and send them every December.
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The cards became popular very quickly as sending them without an envelope was cheaper.
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They also became very popular with naval personnel who often spent Christmas far from their loved ones.
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Many ships of the British Royal Navy designed and printed their own custom Christmas cards. They would normally be of rather laconic design and feature the name and/or the badge of the ship. Some high-ranking officers customised their cards with their names.
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Do you like sending and receiving Christmas cards?📮🎄
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Photo: nauticapedia.ca, Leeds Museums and Galleries
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01/01/2022

Christmas and New Year come to Antarctica in the middle of the austral summer. The sun never sets, the temperatures of air and water reach their maximum and can even climb above zero. The population of the Southern continent around this time is bigger as many people come to work at scientific stations for summer and tourists on cruises often choose this time to celebrate Christmas and New Year in at the southernmost point of the globe.
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Scientists from many countries conduct their research in Antarctica, among them Russia, the UK, the USA, Chile, Argentina, China and others. There are over 80 scientific stations now in Antarctica.
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Many stations celebrate Christmas on December 25th in a manner as close to the traditions of their countries as the circumstances allow. At Russian stations the New Year’s celebration is the most important one as historically this is the most favourite holiday in Russia, much as Christmas in the West.
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How do the polar scientists celebrate? The polar summer is the busiest period for them, so usually they work even on festive days — no time for big parties.
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The researchers decorate their trees — but only the artificial ones. According to the environmental protocols, real trees and other plants cannot be brought to Antarctica. Some stations have their tree decorations brought from home, but there also hand-made paper snowflakes or tin figurines or even beer cans on the trees.
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Festive dinner is usually as traditional as possible — with roast and all the trimmings for the British or the “Olivier” salad (known all over the world as “Russian salad”) for the Russians. It is not customary to drink a lot of alcohol in polar conditions.
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The most important part of the celebration is a phone call to family. Often families of the polar specialists keep their landlines just to keep in touch with their loved ones in Antarctica as you can’t call on mobile from some station phones.
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An interesting tradition is observed at the American Amundsen/Scott base called a “Race around the world” on Christmas day: you have to go around the geographic South Pole by any transport crossing all time zones and lines of Longitude and this way “race around the world”.
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Photo: Kate Uryupova
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31/12/2021

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!🎄✨
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Photo: barque Peking
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#2022

25/12/2021

The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-1917) is one of the most extraordinary expeditions of Antarctica. Sir Ernest Shackleton and the crew of 27 intended to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. Their objective couldn’t be achieved but the expedition became known all over the world for their incredible endurance.
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Today, as many of us prepare to tuck into a festive Christmas dinner, we’d like you to spare a thought about what it was like to celebrate Christmas in Antarctica over a century ago.
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The first Christmas of 1914 Shackleton and his crew spent on board the “Endurance”. The ship was still able to make some progress in the closing ice, the weather was fair, so all hands had a good chance to celebrate. The festivities started with grog served at midnight to all those on watch. The wardroom was decorated with flags, and all hands received a little gift, some had gift from home to open. The dinner, according to Shackleton’s notes, was “splendid, consisting of turtle soup, white-bait, jugged hare, Christmas pudding, mince-pies, dates, figs and crystallized fruits, with rum and stout as drinks”. In the evening everybody took part in a “sing-song”, accompanied by a hand-made one-stringed violin.
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By Christmas of 1915 the expedition had already lost the “Endurance”. The members of the crew were trying to march to reach Paulet Island where they could find a substantial food depot left for the stranded Swedish expedition 12 years ago.
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As Shackleton recalls, they celebrated Christmas early — on the 22nd of December as they needed to start their march to safety as soon as possible. He wrote: “…our small remaining stock of luxuries was consumed at the Christmas feast. We couldn’t carry it all with us… Anchovies in oil, baked beans and jugged hare made a glorious mixture such as we have not dreamed of since our school-days”.
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It took Shackleton and his men over 8 months to return to safety and civilisation. All 28 members of the crew survived and returned home which was the first such case in the history of the Antarctic exploration.
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Photo: Frank Hurley
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24/12/2021

The clipper “Stad Amsterdam”⚓️✨
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Photo:
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22/12/2021

The “Endurance” is one of the most famous ships in the history. She took Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 men (plus sled dogs and a cat!) on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1914.
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The ship was designed and built in Norway in 1912 as a 3-masted barquentine. Initially she was meant for luxurious tourist and hunting voyages in the Arctic but her future owners — the Belgian explorer Adrien de Gerlache and the Norwegian shipowner Lars Christensen — encountered financial problems, and their project never went ahead. The ship was eventually sold to Shackleton who considered her fit for his purpose.
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At launch the barquentine was named “Polaris”. Shackleton re-christened her “Endurance” after his family motto “By endurance we conquer” but the ship retained the star badge on her hull as a reminder of her original name.
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The “Endurance” was an incredibly strong vessel, built of very thick (up to 76 cm) planks of oak and Norwegian fir and equipped with a steam engine. She was the first ship to be insured by Lloyds of London for a voyage to the Antarctic.
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The “Endurance” set sail from Plymouth on the 8th of August 1914 to Buenos Aires. Her last port of call was a whaling station in Grytviken, South Georgia. On the 5th of December 1914 the expedition headed for the Weddell Sea. The plan was to reach the continent and establish a base on Antarctica’s Weddell Sea coast from where the attempt to cross the continent via South Pole would be made.
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The ship’s progress was slowed by the pack ice, and by the end of January 1915 she was locked in and started drifting away from the planned landing spot. Shackleton and his crew were facing many months surrounded by ice and could only hope that the ship would survive the ice captivity, and she did — until in October 1915 the pressure waves occurred, slamming the ice into the stern and breaking it so the ship was flooded. The agony lasted for over a month until on the 22nd of November 1915 the “Endurance” sunk.
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The position of the wreck is known thanks to Captain Frank Worseley, but the remains haven’t been found yet. The next expedition “Endurance22” will take place in 2022, using the deep-water robots “Saab Sabretooth”.
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Photo: Frank Hurley
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21/12/2021

The “Royal Clipper”⚓️
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The shot made from the “Star Flyer” sailing alongside the ship.
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Photo:
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10/12/2021

The “Santa Maria Manuela” was built in Lisbon in 1937. The 4-masted schooner with classic rig, she was launched on May 10th, 1937 together with her sistership “Creola” (now owned by the Portuguese Navy).
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The shipowner, Vasco Albuquerque d’Orey, named the ship after his wife Maria Manuela. The schooner was intended for cod fishing in the seas near Newfoundland and Greenland and belonged to the “white fleet” (most of the Portuguese fishing ships were painted white in those days). As the ship had to survive ice and very low temperatures, her hull was made of steel for robustness. The ship is 63 m long, her tallest mast is 34.5m. With the favourable winds, “Santa Maria Manuela” could reach the speed of 16-17 knots.
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The “Santa Maria Manuela” carried 50 dories — small fishing boats with flat bottoms, which were lowered onto the water carrying one fisherman each. The boats sailed away from the main ship and on a lucky day could bring 300-400 kilos of fish each. The schooner would return home only when all her holds were full of fish.
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The life of “Santa Maria Manuela” as a cod-fishing vessel continued until late 1980s. In 1993 she was considered unseaworthy, got stripped of her masts and rigging. Only the steel hull survived, of which the vessel was reborn a decade later. The company “Pascoal S.A.” bought the hull in 2007 and the process of restoring the schooner began.
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On the 10th of May 2010, on her 73rd birthday, “Santa Maria Manuela” first appeared in the Aveiro harbour in Portugal, looking glorious with new sails and freshly painted white hull. She changed the owner again in 2016, and since then she’s been participating in Tall ships’ Races and other events.
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The ship is used for marine tourism and sail training, offering voyages in the Portuguese waters (from Lisbon to Madeira and the Azores) and across the ocean to Cabo Verde.
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To commemorate her past adventures as a fishing ship, “Santa Maria Manuela” took a few fishing and sailing voyages in the Arctic Circle where the participants could experience what it felt like fishing from a small dory. The ship also takes part in at least one oceanographic expedition a year.
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Photo:
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08/12/2021

The clipper “Stad Amsterdam”🌬⛵️
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Photo:
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04/12/2021

Since her launch in 2006, the superyacht “Maltese Falcon” became one of the most famous and most photographed vessels in the world. All this fame is due not to just a fact that she is one of the most luxurious ships of the century, but to her most unusual design.
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The “Maltese Falcon” is a full-rigged ship equipped with “DynaRig” technology. The concept of “DynaRig” belongs to the German engineer Wilhelm ProIss. In the 1960s he came up with a design of a ship, which would similar to the famous clippers but much easier to operate. The engineer believed that such ships could be used for the international trade as they would use less fuel. His ideas remained forgotten for a few decades.
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In 2001 a famous American businessman Tom Perkins, a keen yachtsman, decided to build a largest yacht in the world. He found the hull made by Perini Navi in Tuzla (Turkey) and hired the Dutch designers from “Dykstra Naval Architects” to design the rigging, and they suggested the “DynaRig” to him.
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In 2006 the 88-meter-long (the largest at the time) superyacht was launched — with the unique rig. It consists of three 57-meter-tall free-standing carbon fibre masts. The rotating masts are equipped with 6 rigid yards each and carry 15 square sails. The sails are set on the yards so that there are no gaps between them, which makes them incredibly efficient. The masts and the yards can be rotated freely for all points of sail.
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The yacht is controlled from a futuristic-looking helm: the operator can set or furl the sails in about 6 minutes, trim them by rotating the masts and the computer will take all important measurements and display them on the screen. If needed, the yacht can be operated by only one person.
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The “DynaRig” allows the “Maltese Falcon” to run on sails more than ordinary rig as it is so much easier to use. By 2019, the yacht completed a total of 174, 000 nautical miles, and 62, 000 of them were under sails.
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The “Maltese Falcon” project turned out to be rather expensive: the costs were estimated at $150-200 million. His owner Tom Perkins sold her to Pleon Ltd in 2008, and since then the superyacht is being chartered for about 500,000 euro a week.
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Photo:
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Monday	09:00 - 18:00
Tuesday	09:00 - 18:00
Wednesday	09:00 - 18:00
Thursday	09:00 - 18:00
Friday	09:00 - 18:00
Saturday	09:00 - 18:00
Sunday	09:00 - 18:00

Maritime Practice International