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.