Quality Entertainment.

The last night of the Tall Ships Race visit literally ended with a bang as the Stockholm Harbor Authority threw a big fireworks show for the fleet. Now I know that I am supposed to be all grown up and whatnot, but the simple truth is that--like many men--I still get a gitty thrill from explosions. What can I say? I am a guy.

So naturally, my evening started off with a bit of excited anticipation. The problem, however, is that this far north it barely gets dark enough to hold a fireworks show during the summer months. So I had some time to kill.

Of course, with a harbor full of sailing ships, a guy like me doesn't really have any trouble 'killing time'. I grabbed a quick bite to eat at a dockside dive and then spent the next few hours meandering up and down the quays gazing at the grand fleet. The long hours of dusk in Scandinavia make for wonderful evening strolls and at 10:00pm I still found myself wandering the waterfront in broad daylight.
The waterfront was packed that evening. Everyone was hanging about waiting for the big fireworks show, but darkness came so very slowly. After a long while, the ships along the quay flicked on their decklights one by one and lit up their elaborate rigging, making the vessels even more striking to the eye.

The best non-explosive light show on the harborfront was undoubtedly the Mexican bark Cuauhtemoc. She was decorated from stem to stern with strands of festive lighting and signal flags topped with a generous helping of lively mariachi music. There was really no question that Cuauhtemoc was the party on the waterfront.

And why not? After all, Cuauhtemoc had just entered her 25th year of service (like me!) and so quite naturally the whole ship was rigged up like a big floating birthday cake.

Stepping out of the daylight-like glow emenating from the Cuauhtemoc into the dimming murk where ship-gazers splashed into unseen puddles with a yelp, I realized it was time to take up position for the show. There were literally dozens of good spots around Stockholm Harbor to view the fireworks show, but picking the best one was going to be a challenge.

You see, I figure that the key to finding a truly choice spot at such a spectacle--the kind of spot that will make the experience memorable for all time--is to make sure you are close as you can legally be. All this talk about getting back far enough 'to see the show as a whole' is just plain hooey. With big-bang, car-alarm-tripping, professional fireworks shows, closer is always better. Few people dare to understand this. Fireworks are not supposed to just be viewed. They should be experienced. Fully. As in a full-body experience involving all the senses. To fully appreciate a genuine pyrotechnic display one should be able to hear it (thoroughly), feel it (internally), smell it (cautiously), and in certain instances, even taste it (regrettably). That is what a true fireworks show is all about.


To ensure that kind of experience, there was only one place for me to be; on the launching barge. But unfortunately I am not classified as 'VIP' or 'certified in high explosives'. Nor did I have a boat so the second best position alongside the barge was nixed too. But position 3--a small island in the middle of the harbor right by the launching barge called Kastellholmen--was wide open.

It would be a bit of a treck around the harbor to the little bridge going out there so with just 20 minutes until the start of the show I took off at a brisk trot, whisking past the towering silhouettes of the great ships along the pier and constantly tripping and stumbling over the cobblestones.

Dashing across the bridge to Skeppsholmen, the stepping stone island on the way out to Kastellholmen, I caught sight of the Cuauhtemoc lighting up the evening sky. That grand rig standing in front of the aged city with its domed and spired churches...majesty is such a limited word.

As I bounded onto Kastellholmen the moon came swelling up out of the southeast, glowing through an almost imperceptible cirrus that diffused its yellow glow like melting butter.

Settling into my preferred perch along the Kastellholmen shore, I surveyed the dozens of tall ships lining the far shores of the harbor. What a grand sight! Ships of every size, shape, and kind from monstrous cruiseships to grand sailing vessels like the Sedov, on down to the harbor ferries, steamboats, and motor yachts...

...and even the big floating crane, Lodbrok (famous for recovering Vasa's cannons during the 1957-1961 salvage), all lit up with blue spotlights. What a fantastic night to be on the harborfront!

Then, with a pop and a 'fzzz', it began. BANG!

With the rising moon and all those ships in the background, it was a wonderful sight--as beautiful as fireworks shows come. This show gets twenty-five points right out of the gates for aesthetics.

Then the big ones began going off--the heart thumpers and bowel tremblers. Another twenty-five points for providing a physical experience.

(Wish I had been aboard the little tin ferry dashing by; must have been resonating like a kettle-drum).

Pretty soon the prevailing wind began to carry that acrid gunpowder smoke my way. Olfactory impact? Check. This was quickly adding up to a quality, full-body fireworks experience.

Another important aspect in judging a fireworks show is the temporal element, for everyone is disappointed by short show. While watching a good fireworks show, there should be at least three points when you think its all over and then 'pop-fzzzz-BANG!' it starts up again. This show had four of those. Dandy!

By unwritten law, the show must crescendo to a new level after each false-finalé, dazzling all the senses with barrage after barrage of multi-color detonations of various sizes and stylistic effect. Each new beginning should leave spectators dumbfounded with shifting mitures of colors that delight, booms that stun, and powder smoke that gags. Good stuff!

After the third false-finalé the first car alarms should be going off, burning embers from the mega-teeth-rattlers ought to be reaching the water still alight, and small children and dogs should be terrified. I know that sounds mean, but let's face it; fireworks aren't for everyone. On an American Motion Picture Association scale, lightshows like the Lodbrok's colored spotlights would get the all-audiences, family-friendly 'G' rating. But 'G' is for 'gimpy' and good fireworks should shock, amaze, and instill a fear of God. They should Roar and warrant a solid 'R' rating. That's what the Stockholm Harbor Authority secured for the Tall Ships. Verifying that, the Jack Russel terrier beside me dove under a bench, howled, and promptly wet the gravel. Well done.


And like any good fireworks show, it wrapped up with a classic, thunderous, and concussive grand finalé. You know--the kind of explosive, fiery, hell that just about scorches your hair and sucks the air out of your lungs. A real thriller of the variety that a mischevious 10 year-old would enjoy. That's what they had going here in Stockholm that great night.

Now that's a send-off for a grand fleet!

Then it broke. The last explosions rumbled off the cliffs and the harbor fell into a remarkable silence. As the smoke drifted listlessly across the water in the moonlight, I waited for the final and most essential measure of a quality fireworks show--the response.

A truly good show causes a 10-30 second delay while 'the stunned' regain their motor skills. That window can seem deceptivly negative at first. But the moment it breaks with the first sounds of scattered clapping from a few bewildered spectators, you can feel where it is going. It quickly escalates to an applause, and then--and this is why fireworks are best when mixed with boats--then come the horns!

In this case it was a few motorboaters who got off the first blasts--just whiny little squaks--, but within the minute the mighty four-masted Russian bark Sedov rattled the foundation of every building in the city with the loudest and lowest ship's horn you have ever heard. As crewmen on the other vessels ran from their viewing perches in the rigging or on the foredeck toward the wheelhouses and horns, the rest of the fleet chimed in one by one until Stockholm Harbor was awash in a thrilling rumble of ship's horns large and small. Even the cruise ships chimed in, giving one long, low blast after another. When the great salute ended, the horns echoed off the cliffs and encoureaged everyone to start another round . It was great! It went on for like five minutes! There dogs howling and seabirds screeching off into the dark in great flocks. Now that's a response.

Obviously I was pretty pleased witht the whole affair. Look at that stupid grin on my face! Like a fox strolling out of the hen house....beamin' like the Cuauhtemoc.

Heading back across the bridge afforded a great view of all the smaller craft (under 250 tons) lined up along Gamla Stan.

It was magical just to gaze at all those little vessels lined up along that aged center of Stockholm that, long ago, was lined with sailing vessels like this every night.

Following the shore past the fleet it was clear that the end of their visit had come. The piers had fallen quiet and the crews were resting up before their morning departure.

The next day they would begin moving out of Stockholm, making for a shallow bar offshore known as Revengegrundet. There, these Coast Guard vessels would be waiting with the icebreaker Sankt Erik to serve as the start line for the next leg of the race.

But during the preceding 5 days, Stockholm had turned out in force to throw an enormous party in celebration of its maritime heritage both past and present. It is a city that knows its routes and doesn't hesitate to light up the night in honor of the centuries of shipping that have passed through this venerable port.

Besides, it was just good, quality entertainment.

The Fighting Frigate Shtandart

Okay, that's enough steel-hulled war prizes for now. Let's go aboard one of those tough and gritty wooden sailing ships that went out and won expensive war prizes! Time to go aboard a true fighting ship--the Russian frigate Shtandart!


While most of the big ships that came to Stockholm were technically naval vessels with navy crews, the Shtandart with her 22 cannon was the only real warship among them. The others were mere training vessels where cadets learned seamanship and etiquette.

But Shtandart--although displaying wreaths of peace around her gunports--was not built to 'play nice'. When the original ship was launched in 1703, she marked the beginning of a new era in Russian seafaring. Peter the Great envisioned Russia as a major European power and knew that a strong, centralized navy was essential. One of the first major ocean-going naval vessels to enter service with the Imperial Russian fleet was the dashing little frigate Shtandart.

Going aboard the replica today, one definitely gets the impression that this embodiment of military and diplomatic will is the creation of a country on the rise. She is as stout, solid, and ornate as any naval ship from Britain, the Netherlands, or France, but notably small. The Shtandart is only 25 meters long on the main deck (82ft) and weighs in at just 220-tons displacement. Yet she's a tough little ship--and like I said, the only decently armed one of the Tall Ships fleet.

She is an extraordinary vessel to come aboard. As soon as you hop off the gangplank and thump down on that solid wooden deck you find yourself in another age. Ships like the Lehmkuhl, the Sedov, or the Europa have a very different atmosphere and you half expect to see steamships on the horizon. But a ship like Shtandart--a rough and ready wooden vessel built in the era of undiscovered lands, mythical sea creatures, and Blackbeard--evokes an entirely different aura. One gets the notion that just beyond the ship's sturdy bulwarks lies an unknown world full of savages, pirates, and fire-breathing fish that will strike down any sailor who dares to tresspass in the wilderness realm of the world's uncharted seas. Facing such terrors, the ship is one's only safe haven and it is no wonder that the bell--the ship's soul incarnate--is enshrined abaft the forecastle. The Shtandart really is a journey into a time when the world was a much larger and more mysterious place.

After being aboard those battleship-like, German-built, steel barks of the early 20th Century, the little wooden Shtandart with her stocky masts--each hewn from a single tree and bound with hempen woolding--or the creak and groan of her hull immediately heave you back at Nature's mercy once again.

For all the power and wealth represented in the Tzar's Imperial flag flapping at the masthead, she is still just a little ship of wood, canvas, and tar safeguarded by nothing more than the strength and courage of her crew. When she went to sea (almost in spite of the forces against her--both natural and naval) it was an era when navigation was imprecise and the kind of weather that would be welcomed as a fresh breeze aboard Shtandart's enormous steel-hulled descendents would have struck her as a fierce and ravaging storm.

Yet in her time, the now-archaic looking Shtandart with her iron cannon, unsplit topsails, and castle-like tops (circular platform on the mast) was the pinnacle of naval technology. Okay... maybe not quite the pinnacle that the established naval powers were. After all, Sweden built a much more complex version of this ship 70 years earlier--the Vasa. But for being the vanguard of a fledgling naval power, Russia's little Shtandart was pretty cutting edge!

She was definitely the pride of the Russian Imperial Navy and made such an impression during her years of service that she has been resurrected as a replica and once again sails as a symbol of another new Russia. So for whatever her shortcomings past and present may have been, she fits the maxim "We may be small, but we're scrappy!"

And armed with 22 stout 4-pounders with thickened breach for a larger charge and thus higher muzzle veloctiy, she is more than ready to get into a scrap!

But Shtandart isn't just a fine example of New Russia or a fighting ship from the early days of fleet action theory. She's also an interesting--if not always accurate--example of shipbuilding in her time. She has a thousand fascinating details from the days when big ships (relatively speaking) were built from wood. The heavy timbers, the joinery, the sculptural work, the trunnels, mortices, tennons, scarphs, even the mast boot (pictured here) were from a seemingly forgotten era in shipbuilding....

The rig too, was a fascinating piece to look at. Although much of it was functionally practical rather than historically accurate (the laminated blocks for example), it was still impressive to pause and gaze at an example of the heavy and often slack rigging used in that era (between the flexibility of wooden masts and the tendency of hemp cordage to shorten when wet, the rigging had to be kept loose to prevent breaking the spars--watch a video of an all-wooden square-rigger like Götheborg III or Batavia under sail; you can't miss how loose the rig is and if the seas are rough enough you can even see the rig flopping about).

All right, time to go aft and have a look at the wheel and the quarterdeck. Clearly, it is the popular hangout onboard aboard this Russian beauty.

Unlike the Vasa which has a very similar rig and general design, the Shtandart does have a steering wheel rather than the awkward whipstaff used in previous centuries. Even so, it is fairly rudimentry as far the technology goes--except that fancy synthetic blue line running around the drum and down to the rudderhead. In 1703 that was probably hemp or seal-skin (doesn't stretch). There is something wonderful in the simplicity of such a design....

From that perch by the wheel on the quarter deck one gets a pretty fine view forward over the plucky little ship.... (Note the spare topmasts standing by--the thing with the white-painted end in the foreground).

...and more importantly, the helmsman has a clear, unobstructed view of the sails hung on those 3 masts (technically 4 if you count the stubby little sprits'l topmast mounted on the end of the bowsprit). As helmsman, he who steers the ship is not just responsible for keeping her moving in a particular direction, but he also must keep the ship on course relative to the wind and be sure the sails don't get back-winded.

Certainly an enchanting rig if there indeed ever was one!

Well, with a parting salute (preferably not from this literally 'loose cannon') I suppose it is time to head for the gangplank and the shore....

...as we bid farewell to the dashing knight of the 2007 Tall Ships Race, the illustrous frigate Shtandart.

A Dose of Norwegian Pride; Statsraad Lehmkuhl

Now for a quick peek at the Norwegian bark Statsraad Lehmkuhl.
The Lehmkuhl had the distinguished honor of being among the oldest vessels to participate in the 2007 Tall Ships Race. Like the Russian giants, she was built in Germany. Ninety-eight meters long (258ft) and rated at 1,516 tons, she slid down the ways in 1914 and went to sea as the Grossherzog Friedrich August.

However, 1914 marked the start of that rather disastrous downturn in German seafaring known in certain circles as World War I. When that 'Great Misunderstanding' was resolved in 1918, the Grossherzog Friedrich August was handed over to Great Britain as a war reparation--notice a pattern here? I am beginning to wonder if the Tall Ships Race is really about historic ships or just for showing off war prizes?

(Either way, sailing ships make great war reparations. America really ought to build a few dazzlingly lovely ones to give away at the Post-Iraq Gala. After all, we need to recover our dignity after giving South Vietnam those ugly, modern navy ships. Where has the grace in losing gone?)

In 1921 the Grossherzog Friedrich August was sold to Norway and has since operated out of Bergen as the Norwegian Naval Training Ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl.

When I stepepd aboard there was a training excercise/demonstration in progrss. With a harness, block and tackle, and plenty of encouragement shouted from the deck, one of the Norwegian cadets was hoisting herself up the mainstay. Sure cuts down on the need for extra crew if people can hoist themselves aloft!

Yet, being a square-rigger carrying five yards on both the main and foremasts, plenty of headsails and staysails, plus a spanker, gaff-topsail, and everything else on the mizzenmast, the Statsraad Lehmkuhl still requires a crew of 150 cadets to keep her ship-shape and on course.

From the look of it, they are doing a mighty good job of it. The paint, varnish, and bronzework was spotless, the lines nicely coiled down, and the teak decking scrubbed and clean.

She was the picture of a 'taught ship' without a slack line or a brush and bucket out of place.

The Lehmkuhl was moored furthest out along the south side of the harbor and from her decks one had a pretty good view of the happenings of the harbor. Peeking over the rail to have a look at the hull plating, I found the little M20 nosing past. She's a wooden-hulled Swedish minesweeper from the 1950s that resides at the pier in front of the Vasa Museum beside the icebreaker Sankt Erik.

Speaking of the Sankt Erik, she was steaming in from one of her tours at that moment--cooling water thundering out of her side and a flotilla of admirers following along.

My... how she just glides along making nary a wake at all....

Wow....

But wait! I am already aboard a stunning vessel!

But why fight it? As lovely as the Lehmkuhl is with her gorgeous teak deck and brightwork, she is not my ship in the way Sankt Erik is. The Lehmkuhl is just a passing acquaintance...but certainly one of those stunning acquaintances you never forget.

The Norwegian bark Statsraad Lehmkuhl.

Indeed, another magnificent ship.