Could I learn the Gotheborg’s ropes… in Swedish?

Whorls upon rolls upon rings of neatly coiled ropes, were piled on the deck, looped around cleats and, of course, forming the rigging. So many ropes. That’s what struck me as we stepped aboard the Gotheborg, billed as the world’s largest ocean-going wooden sailing ship.

Begunbrass, kryssbrass, nockgarding, birkgarding: we read the brass labels with the Swedish names of the well-oiled ropes and wondered how anyone could keep them all straight, even if you knew Swedish. And indeed, that was a challenge for Donna, who had signed on as a deckhand and helped sail the Gotheborg (Götheborg in Swedish) into the Lisbon harbour.  

“I’ve had to learn sailing terminology in Swedish,” explained Donna, who came from Los Angeles with sailing experience on a tall ship. “But these are different lines than I’m used to and all orders are in Swedish,” including the names of the ropes.

The Gotheborg, a replica of the Swedish East India Company ship of the same name, docked in Lisbon for four days in early September. It’s en route from Sweden (where it left on June 8, 2022) to Shanghai, where it will arrive in September 2023. Anyone aged 18 to 70 can apply to be a deckhand for a leg or two of the voyage.

“I would love to do that!” I told Bill as we began our tour along with seven other friends from Alcobaça. What an adventure that would be, I thought. Surely I could learn a few Swedish rope names. I contemplated the romance of living and working aboard a (replica) vessel that had made three voyages to China between 1738 and 1745 and returned with eastern riches – mainly tea, but also spices, chinaware, silk, and mother of pearl.

“It’s amazing!” said Donna. “A really rich experience.”

Supervised by a professional crew, the deckhands are divided into three watches – teams of 14 to 17 people each. They work for four hours, are off duty for eight hours, and then repeat for the entire voyage, day and night. Donna helped set and take in sails, steer the ship, swab the decks, take turns on lookout, go on safety rounds, help in the galley, clean, do maintenance, and answer questions from visitors while the ship is in port. Your watch becomes like family – “really intense communal living,” she said.

But then came the kicker.

“When you sign up, you agree to go aloft,” she explained, pointing up the rigging to the platforms on the masts and along the yards (the horizontal beams along the masts that help hold the sails).

“You climbed up there?!” I asked, incredulous.

“We wear a safety harness to go up and set the sails or trim the sails,” she assured me. The hardest part is where the rigging bends backwards, so it’s like rock climbing under an overhang.

Now, I’ve been indoor rock climbing, but that overhang part would be tough for me. I’m not sure I have the upper body strength. Plus, you must climb the rigging at night, with no lights, in big waves or bad weather. And it’s high – you’re swaying with the ship, up to 40 metres above the deck in the dark.   

“You really rely on your night vision,” said Donna, who had joined the crew for the Bremerhaven, Germany, to Lisbon leg. “With no ambient light, the stars were incredible.”

The Gotheborg had crossed the notoriously rough North Sea, English Channel and Bay of Biscay and all had been calm. But what if it had been rough? I am prone to sea sickness…

The more we chatted with Donna, the more it sounded like learning the ropes in Swedish was the easy part. 

“I was lookout coming into port,” she recalled. “It was like threading the needle coming into Cascais [a town before Lisbon] between all the fishing pots.”

We thanked Donna and headed below to the gun deck where the six-pounder replica cannons pointed out the gun ports at Lisbon. They’re working cannons. Now, they’re fired electronically, using black powder and newspaper, for ceremonial salutes and greetings when they enter a port or see another ship. The original ship had 30 cannons, used to deter pirates and other East India companies from stealing the valuable cargo.

The Swedish East India Company, headquartered in the city of Gothenburg, carried out 132 trade expeditions with 37 ships between 1731 and 1813 when goods from Asia were in enormous demand in Europe. Each expedition took 18 months, through mostly uncharted waters, via the Cape of Good Hope, since the Suez Canal didn’t exist then. Today’s route to China goes through the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal.

The original Gotheburg sank on Sept. 12, 1745, just before reaching its home harbour of Gothenburg after its third voyage. It’s still not known why it ran aground on a well-known rock in waters familiar to the experienced crew. The wind could have shifted suddenly and, with no engines then, it would have been harder to change direction quickly, explained Anna, the ship’s media relations officer. There’s even speculation that insurance fraud could have been a motivation. But that ill-fated voyage still made a 15 percent profit, since nearly everything of value was salvaged.

“These ships were incredibly profitable at the time,” said Anna. Each voyage carried the equivalent of Sweden’s gross domestic product of the time, which would be worth $560 billion in today’s economy. “Sweden was quite poor at the time. The voyages played a big part in rebuilding the economy.”

The replica was built in Gothenburg over a decade using historically correct tools, methods and materials while also meeting today’s safety standards. Built mainly of oak and pine, the ship also has 700 elm pulleys, 3,000 tarred bolts made in a forge, 56,000 forged nails that weigh 12 tons altogether, and 26 sails.

We watched the sailmaker thread a needle at his workbench, surrounded by a pile of the heavy linen sails that weigh one kilo per square meter. Every eyelet and seam is hand stitched.

“I sew and it was really hard,” Donna had told us about her sail-making lesson. “Every sail is stitched by hand. He really teaches you the professional techniques.” The sails are made from heavy linen. “They’re beautiful to the touch but they weigh a ton.”

The biggest sail weighs 400 kilos and it takes a team of deckhands to handle each sail.

Today’s Gotheborg is an interesting mix of old and new. We stuck our heads in the navigation room, with its GPS and various computers to keep the ship on course. But nearby is the old brass magnetic compass, the wood-and-rope device for measuring knots (the ship’s speed), and a pin compass that helped the navigators plot their course.

“When we lose all power on the ship, this will still be working,” another deckhand said about the compass. By law, the ship must have a reliable working compass and a sextant aboard.

The original Gotheborg had a crew of 140 men, which included extras since 15 percent of crew members died along the way from scurvy, fever, starvation, and other unsafe conditions. No safety harnesses protected them high up in the rigging in 1745. Today’s crew numbers 70 to 80, including 20 professionals, with no replacements in case of scurvy. The modern galley has freezers so starvation is no longer a threat either.

We saw two guitars and a full bookshelf, but also a pull-down screen for movie viewing. The gun deck doubles as living and dining space, with tables hanging by ropes so they move with the ship over the waves. Most of the deckhands sleep in hammocks. Could my back take that, plus all the manual labour? I still toyed with the dream of being a deckhand.

Two more decks below the gun deck house storage compartments, the engine room and crew quarters. Visitors weren’t permitted there, so we climbed back up the steep stairs/ladder to the main deck.

At the bow, we watched a man on a bosun’s chair (like a swing) hanging below the bowsprit doing some maintenance work. I could do that, I thought.

Then a woman climbed up the bowsprit, stepping along bits of wood nailed to the slanted beam. I could probably do that if I had a safety harness. In the daylight. In calm water.

But then I turned around and saw a man way up high, clinging to the main yard, his feet balanced on just a rope. Nope. Can’t do that, in Swedish or English. But I sure wish I could…

The Gotheborg will have to set sail for China without me.

The replica Gotheborg was built over a decade using historically correct tools, methods and materials.

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We toured the Gotheborg on Sept. 6, 2022. Find out where we are right now by visiting our ‘Where’s Kathryn?’ page.