07/31/2019
Tall ship at Pickering wharf in Salem. As you may know, "Our" ship - the Friendship is mastless at the moment, but there was a visiting ship in today that was very impressive.
Some info about it:
The original Kalmar Nyckel was one of America’s pioneering colonial ships, a Mayflower of the Delaware Valley, yet her remarkable story has never been widely told.
The original ship — a new type of gun-armed merchant vessel called a Dutch Pinnace — was built by the Dutch in Amsterdam in about the year 1625. She was purchased in 1629 by a Swedish consortium to serve as an auxiliary warship for the Swedish navy, which she did until her decommissioning in 1651 — except for the years from 1637 to 1644 when she sailed the Atlantic for the New Sweden Company. An exceptional ship with a long and remarkable career, she was sold to a private merchant after being decommissioned from the navy. No completely definitive records have been uncovered as of yet, but Kalmar Nyckel was probably resold to the Dutch navy as an es**rt vessel and sunk in the North Sea while fighting for the Dutch in a war against the English in 1652.