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TeVega2 masted gaffrigged topsail schooner
beam 28' draft 17'1/2, (aprox 10,500 ft sail) Flint school owned ship in'74-'81, I was there 3 yearsTeVega (you say
1905, i thought 1930, but Kiel is right)steel hull, In 1995 TeVega changed hands and restoration work was undertaken first at the Bilbao shipyards and then at the Beconcini shipyards in La Spezia, Italy. The goal of the very meticulous restructuring work, whilst maintaining the style and technology of the time, was above all to produce a comfortable and functional yacht, suitable for long cruises. It has now taken to the seas again, powered by a 700 hp Mtu diesel engine and with its Maltese Cross Class 100 A 1.1 Y. conferred by RINA to yachts of prestige and aimed at rewarding the efforts of shipbuilders competing in an increasingly demanding market. News Source: http://www.rina.it/material/news/rina_news/news26.html For many more historical pictures and details of TeVega: http://www.enterpriseintegrators.com/flint/HistoryOfShips/index.htm I thank Palmer Stevens <palmer.stevens@enterpriseintegrators.com> for this information 8 Nov 2000
Sat, 13 Jun 1998 16:43:38 -0500 Regards, Jeff Berry
Thu, 19 Feb 1998 13:24:10 EST
Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1999 21:57:17 -0500 From: Lawrence & Debra Trim <PAGE-TRIM@worldnet.att.net> Hello Schooner man, I worked on the TeVega when it was owned by Mr. Harold Miller and captained by Capt. Willoby in the early 60's. I joined the boat in 1960 and left the boat in 1962 under the leadership of Capt. Boisen. Capt.Boisen was from Sweden. I had a wonderful time on this boat. We sailed the Atlantic Ocean and Carribean Sea mostly visiting the two dozen islands in he Carribean chain. We carried famous guests such as Anita Edberg. I was the chef on the boat but had alot of fun helping with the sail, etc. on deck. When I sailed her, she had a white hull. We were encouraged to enjoy our selves with the guests often inviting steel bands to play on deck as we barbecued foods for our guests. The boat was leased to a university in Carlifornia for pacific research. I sailed on the Windsong (36 foot Sloop) and the Windward Star (a 50 foot sloop). The most fun I had during my youth was on the TeVega. If you find out any other information about this ship, I would be glad to hear it. Sincerely, Lawrence Trim, Sr. Thu, 11 Feb 1999 03:07:30 -0500
jsjostrom@tribune.com wrote:> I've been searching for information the Te Vega on the Internet and elsewhere on and off for a long time, and just recently found your entry on novagate. In the summer of 1961 I worked on the schooner Te Vega as a below-decks steward, looking after the charter passengers and waiting on the officers table. That summer on the Te Vega in the Caribbean remains the adventure of a lifetime. So you can imagine, it was quite a thrill to encounter your Website entry. Having said that, I wonder if my Te Vega and yours are the same ship. The one I worked on was said to be 135 feet long, and your listing indicates a length of 156 feet. Also, the Te Vega had no deckhouses, just raised roofs of the cabins, in 1961. `My' Te Vega was said to be built by Krupp in Germany. In 1961 it was based at English Harbor, Antigua, and carried charter passengers on one-week cruises in the Windward & Leeward Islands. It was represented by R.E.B. Nicholson charter agents, of English Harbor, and It was owned by one Mr. Miller, of Oregon or Washington state. It had a crew of seven sailors plus captain, first mate, second mate, engineer, pursar, two cooks, chief steward, assistant steward (me), and mess boy. There were usually 10 or 12 passengers but on one short cruise (5 or 6 days) the ship was> chartered just one man! The officers and sailors were all from Sweden. The sailors were teenage boys who attended a maritime acedemy in Sweden and at certain intervals left school to work on ships. > At the end of the summer of 1961, Te Vega sailed to Oyster Bay, NY, where it was to undergo conversion from a gaff rig on both masts to a staysail rig. I sailed along to New York, via Bermuda, and flew home > to Chicago from there. > I next heard of the Te Vega in 1965, when my father sent me a clipping from a local southwest side Chicago newspaper saying a local boy was aboard the Te Vega in the Pacific on some kind of work/study program. From then, I heard nothing about Te Vega until 1994, when I saw an ad in Wooden Boat magazine placed by Bruce Boal, a yacht broker with J.A > Consultants, of Antibes, France, requesting information on the Te Vega. > In response to my letter, Mr. Boal wrote that the Te Vega had fallen into disrepair, but that new owners were putting a lot of money into making her shipshape again and were seeking information on the boat's history. So, I wrote him a long letter about my experience on Te Vega and spent $10 or $15 making reprints from black & white negatives of photos I took on Te Vega. I sent these to Mr. Boal, but never received an acknowledgement from him. A year or two ago I wrote to Mr. Boal inquiring about the status of Te Vega but the letter was returned. I can't find any Internet listings for J.A. Consultants. In 1959 my family moved from our home in Chicago to San Juan, Puerto Rico. My father was a civil engineer and had taken a job as the architect's representative on construction of slaughterhouse and meat packing plant in Caguas, P.R. > In May 1961, I was finishing my sophomore year in high school, the > packing plant was completed, and we were preparing to move back to Chicago. I saw an ad in the English-language San Juan Star newspaper for a mess boy on the Te Vega, which was docked in San Juan at the time. I went down and applied and was hired, thought as it turned out > they hired somebody else to be mess boy (dishwasher and kitchen cleanup) and assigned me to be assistant steward (clean up passengers' cabins, wait on the officers' table etc etc etc.) The school year wasn't over, so the Te Vega bought me an airplane ticket to Antigua, where I met the ship a few weeks later. The ship was gaff rigged then, however the main had been blown out in a storm and was replaced by a triangular sail. Even that smaller sail was enormous. It was raised by a halyard wrapped around an electric winch, and the halyward looked as tight as a piano wire while pulling up the sail. > Well, I was a pretty naive kid about the world of work, the world of adults, etc etc, so in some respects I had a fairly tough summer. On the other hand, when I returned to Chicago, I was the only one of my > peers who had ever heard of the Grenadines, Anguilla, or Fort de> France, Martinique, let alone been there. Do you want to know more? Send me a message, or write snail mail or
To: <schoonerman@novagate.com> I worked as a teacher aboard TeVega l988-1989 when she was used by the Landmark School in Beverly Farms,MA as a sail-training vessel and school ship for 18 students. The owner at the time was a man from the Netherlands. We began our year in Amsterdam and sailed to many ports over the next 9 months. These included Vigo,Spain; St. Malo, France; Ibiza, Menorca, Almeria, Tenerife. We then sailed transatlantic, 17 days, to Antigua. We sailed in the Caribbean for a few months - St. Barts, Isle de Saint, St. Kitts, BVI's,. Then we were off the St. Georges, Bermuda and ended in New York. Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 17:59:25 -0500
JSAnderson
Sat, 26 Dec 1998 17:18:04 +0100 From: "Andrea" <abarbieri@atlantis.tm> Now Te Vega is owned by Calisto Tanzi of Parma (Italy) a tycoon involved in both food and travel business. From: "Julia Sullivan Anderson" <janderson@prsd.org>
From: Wesley Fielding <wfieldng@jps.net> , In the summer of 1964 I had the pleasure of being aboard Te Vega when she sailed from Mombasa, Kenya, to Singapore under the auspices of Stanford University. We were a scientific expedition studying the Deep Scattering Layer, i.e. the D.S.L., of the ocean, a sonar layer deep in the sea which moves up and down with the daylight and nighttime hours. We dragged a fine net many thousands of feet down, catching organisms we thought were the cause of the DSL. We established, with our work, that the organism was a siphonophore an organism that is light sensitive. The work was later published. The boat traveled across the Pacific stopping at the Seychelle Islands, The Maldive Islands, and Sri Lanka. At each stopping point we also collected reef fish to identify and catalogue. The trip was about eight weeks in length and ruined my life forever because I have never since found anything exciting, romantic, and adventurous to do with my life that comes anywhere close to my Te Vega Adventure. We were five faculty members, twelve marine biology students, and a crew of fifteen. My job was a combination of faculty member and ship's physician. At the time I was a practicing anesthesiologist in Carmel, California. The members of that trip are, many of us, still in constant contact with each other even though we made the trip thirty-five years ago. The trip changed my life entirely and I remain grateful to the boat, its builders, and Stanford University. Wesley Fielding, M.D. Lakeport, California
Interesting to see your information on TeVega. It filled in a lot of historical blanks that I was not aware of. I sailed on her from August 1970 through 1973. I participated in the shakedown cruise shortly after the Flint School bought her. Owners George Stoll and his son Capt. Jim Stoll. The Flint School was a private land based school from Sarasota, FL that movedaboard the TeVega in the fall of 1970. If my memory is right the first students met the ship in Bimini or another of the Bahamas Islands. From: The TeVega and TeQuest sailed together beginning late fall 1972. I was first officer on her from '72 to '73. The owner George Stoll and a small crew, of I think 6, sailed her from Ft. Lauderdale to Rotterdam, Holland. In Rotterdam, the three steel masts, rigging and sails were added. New deck boards, caulking and gallons of paint and varnish were applied. Needless to say the TeQuest crossed the Atlantic under power with much difficulty, a sextant, weather facsimile and a prayer. Dthriftusa@aol.com 10 Oct 1999 18:54:09 EDT
From: "Jeffrey A. Barach" It was with great pleasure that I was directed to your web page. I sailed on the Vega (later Te Vega), as a galley boy (serving meals to the crew and assisting the cook), when I was 16 in 1951. She had been acquired by Mr. Cornelius Crane (hier of the plumbing fortune) who sailed her from Los Angeles to Tahiti & Bora Bora while I was on board. He had acquired her after she had been used during the war as an at sea look-out ship, being rolled about in the Pacific swells. He had a big deckhouse and galley added. She had white topsides at time. Our captain was the legendary Capt. Flint. We took 12 passengers to Tahiti, with a crew of 18, I think. In Tahiti she was transfered to French registry to act as a passenger ship between Hawaii and Tahiti -- air service was only to Bora Bora and mostly charter. On the way down we reached 15 - 17 knots at one point but the lee rail was well under water at the time and we flooded the main engine and one generator, so the captain did not indulge in that much fun again. The transfer of registry took months and I had to leave the ship to go back to school. When Vega left Tahiti in December I later learned that she had a catastrophe at sea, the main mast having broken off at the deck, killing 2 and injuring many others. I was told she was still in Tahiti 4 years later, still having metal work done on her hull. I was told that none of the big schooners carried topmasts any more and that the stress on the masts from rolling about while looking for Japanese subs, etc., must have been severe. When on her shakedown cruise from Long Beach, CA to Hawaii (that's how my summer started) with some paid and some corinthian crew, we poped a main topmast backstay and at a diferent time, the bobstay. After that, the cook said this ship was going to have a wreck and that was too much strain on the rigging. He was a terrible pessimist, but this time he was right. I have met several who have sailed on her as students and teachers, cooks, etc., during here school ship years. I've just seen some recent pictures and will send PK Stevens some of my photographs from the summer of 1951. She was, according to my memory, 150' tall, 136' long (hull), 22' wide and 12' deep. She had a 200 hp motor and a couple of generators. We made 6+ knots under power and a bit more in the normal breezes of the mid-Pacific. From: "Jeffrey A. Barach"
From: Douglas Thomas <drthomas@neteze.com>
Date: Monday, January 15, 2001 8:19 PM
I sailed on Te Vega in 1965-66 just after her cruise from Mombasa to
Singapore by way of the Seychelles, described by Wesley Feilding. She was
sailing bald-headed, her top-masts shipped presumably due to earlier incidents
described elsewhere.
Her owner at the time was John Hopkins Marine Lab in Monterey CA, an offshoot
of Stanford University. During the time I was aboard the captain was Omar Darr,
who previously owned her during her Honolulu-Tahiti days.
We did some research in Monterey Bay in a large volume of water near the
Monterey Marine Canyon which was strangely deficient in oxygen. During that time
Te Vega also underwent extensive refitting at Bethleham Shipyard in San
Francisco.
The (excellent) cook was caught smoking marijuana at the top of the mainmast,
and fired. His replacement was a short, crew-cut sailor from 30 years at MSTS
and at our first reprovisioning I counted eight cases of canned peas being
loaded aboard. I tendered my resignation. Still, the time aboard Te Vega was
idyllic and I still remember it well. I sometimes wonder if that piece of
leather I crafted for the boom cradle is still there...
<drthomas@neteze.com>
I sailed on Te Vega in 1965-66 just after her cruise from Mombasa to
Singapore by way of the Seychelles, described by Wesley Feilding. She was
sailing bald-headed, her top-masts shipped presumably due to earlier incidents
described elsewhere.
Her owner at the time was John Hopkins Marine Lab in Monterey CA, an offshoot
of Stanford University. During the time I was aboard the captain was Omar Darr,
who previously owned her during her Honolulu-Tahiti days.
We did some research in Monterey Bay in a large volume of water near the
Monterey Marine Canyon which was strangely deficient in oxygen. During that time
Te Vega also underwent extensive refitting at Bethleham Shipyard in San
Francisco.
The (excellent) cook was caught smoking marijuana at the top of the mainmast,
and fired. His replacement was a short, crew-cut sailor from 30 years at MSTS
and at our first reprovisioning I counted eight cases of canned peas being
loaded aboard. I tendered my resignation. Still, the time aboard Te Vega was
idyllic and I still remember it well. I sometimes wonder if that piece of
leather I crafted for the boom cradle is still there..
I prefer to remember Tahiti as it was then.
Karl Polifka kmflyer@erols.com 05/31/00
09/25/2001
In July of 1987 I was part of the delivery crew that sailed "TeVega"
over to Holland from Lunenburg Nova Scotia. My brother graduated from Landmark
in 1987 that's how I met Capt. Steve Wedlock. I just Graduated from Florida
Inst. if Tech with A marine tech degree. About ten days after meeting
Capt.Wedlock I was in Lunenburg NS getting the vessel ready for the passage to
Europe. We had a great sail across to the Channel Island where we stopped for a
day before sailing the three days to the Masacant shipyard in Stelladam The
Netherlands. I stayed on board until September before flying home to Boston.
Does anyone no what Capt. Wedlock is doing these days. If anyone reading
knows anybody that was part of this crew Contact me at dreamcatcher_sail@hotmail.com
or rbova@soundown.com.
Robert Bova
From: "Ivana Ostoic" <ivana@bubbledive.com> 9 Oct 2001
Te Vega is at the moment in La Spezia, and it is owned by Tanzi family.Last
summer we did a cruise in the Adriatic Sea (Croatia). She is fully renowated and
very comfortable. The crew is 11 sailors, and captain.
We had a great time
ivana
From: RWymbs@aol.com Email me at schoonerman@novagate.com |
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