| Lwów |
ex „Chinsura”, „Lucco”, „Nest”  Specifications: A three-masted barque Launched: 1869, G.R. Clover & Co., Birkenhead, England Owner: Polish Maritime School in Tczew Length with bowsprit: 85.1 m Beam: 11.4 m Draught: 6.3 – 6.9 m Sail surface: 1500 m2 Deadweight: 1600 DWT Top speed under sail: 12.5 kts Engines: KROMHUT 2x 360 hp Engine-supported speed: 6.5 kts Crew: 35 permanent crew, including 10 officers, 140 trainees A three-masted barque, built in 1869 in the English shipyard G.R. Clover & Co. The first Polish training sail ship. On 17 June 1920, the establishment of the Polish Maritime School in Tczew was announced. The applicants, after passing their entrance examinations, went to fight in the Polish-Soviet war, and vice-admiral Kazimierz Porębski, the commanding officer of the Modlin-Zegrze defence section, was consulted about the purchase of a training ship while in the battlefield. The Maritime School commission found a ship berthed on the Meuse downstream of Rotterdam. She was 51 years old then. She had first been sailing to India as an English ship named Chinsura after a Chinese god. Then, at the end of the 19th century, as the Italian Lucco, she lost her masts in a storm in the Indian Ocean and was sold again under the name of Nest. The commission found her condition and price satisfactory. Thus in August 1920, the Dutch Nest became the Polish Lwów, and gained an honourable nickname of the Polish "cradle of navigators". She was adapted to training purposes, equipped with hammocks and a forecastle for students, but part of her holds were left to carry cargo. And as it was the Maritime Affairs Department of the Ministry of Military Affairs that was in charge of the vessel, she was formally a warship. Consequently, her sides were painted black, with a large white stripe and black squares imitating ancient embrasures (as recommended by Admiral Nelson). On 8 December 1920, the flag was hoisted in front of the Polish Maritime School in Tczew. The hoisting of the flag on the first Polish sail training ship called Lwów took place on 4 September 1921, on the Gdynia roadstead. Tadeusz Ziółkowski, MM became her commanding officer. On 31 December 1922, after the reorganisation of maritime administration, the Lwów lowered her naval flag and hoisted a merchant one. Captain Tadeusz Ziółkowski, no longer the CO, became a French-style commandant – the second in command and the first mate – Mamert Stankiewicz and Konstanty Maciejewicz – were also master mariners. Later the title was used on the Dar Pomorza, and is used now on the Dar Młodzieży. It was then that a saying was coined that "anybody can become a captain, but not a commandant of a sailing ship". After the Lwów's flag was changed, the School's budget was reduced, posing a threat that the ship might have to be sold. What was needed was a spectacular, self-financing voyage. It was decided that the ship would sail to Denmark with general cargo, then to Sweden, where she would take cement, and then to Brazil. On 23 May 1923, the Lwów set sail and for the first time the Polish flag was carried to ports of the world. The ship also took cargo for Polish people living overseas, i.e. woven wall hangings, wooden toys, china, Baczewski and Kasprowicz vodkas, wicker furniture, 400 ploughs (70 tons) and a large number of sickles (30 tons). Stories have survived about the first, historic crossing of the equator and warm, moving reception by Poles living in Brazil, although nobody wanted to buy sickles or ploughs. The ship covered a distance of 16.380 nautical miles during 171 days, and ended her cruise in Cherbourg due to severe winter. The permanent crew and the students came back to the country as heroes and from that time on they were called the "Brazilians". The Lwów was on her sea duty for only ten years. During that time she covered 63,166 nautical miles, sailing the Baltic, Mediterranean and Black Seas and the Atlantic Ocean for 818 days. She gave Poland 100 navigators. On 13 July 1930, Dar Pomorza stood beside her in Gdynia, taking over the sea watch from her. The Lwów was handed over to the Navy; deprived of her masts, she was used as a hulk for the crews of Polish warships in the port of Gdynia-Oksywie. Then she was a floating warehouse, and finally a coal scow. In 1938 she was scrapped. Allegedly, the Nazi scrapped her into "razor blades". Lwów commandants: Tadeusz Ziółkowski, MM 1920 – 1924 Mamert Stankiewicz, MM (nick-named "That Is Captain"), 1924 - 1927 Konstanty Maciejewicz, MM (nick-named "Macaj") 1927 – 1929 – Lwów's last commandant, the first commandant of the Dar Pomorza
Dar Pomorza | Dar Młodzieży | Pogoria | Iskra I | Iskra II | Zawisza Czarny I | Zawisza Czarny II | Lwów | Elemka |
