- Not the computer, but the crew sets the the 2,800 m² sails.
The rigging is the soul of a sailing ship. It determines if man is equipped to compete with wind and waves. In Europe today there are only a few contractors capable of rigging large sailing ships. The necessary handcraft skills are nearly extinct in the computer age.
While searching for an appropriate partner for the SEA CLOUD II’s rigging, SEA CLOUD CRUISES discovered the city of Wolgast on the Peene river. There, shipbuilder Detlev Löll runs a construction office and shipyard under the name Navicom. The SEA CLOUD II was a special challenge for him and his team. After all, this was about rigging the all-time largest barque.
- The rigging, a complicated work of art, calls for traditionally-made and reliable components.
Piece by piece, boat and shipbuilders, welders, turners and smiths in Wolgast produced the complete upright and running gear – a bewildering and fascinating mixture of more than 13 miles of rope, steel wire and plastic cable. In the meantime, a sail maker in Poland produced 24 new sails. The masts were built at the Spanish shipyard..
Simultaneously across Europe, pieces of a gigantic puzzle were created, and they were just waiting to be put together.
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