Kalmar Nyckel
Encyclopedia
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
-built armed merchant ship famed for carrying Finnish and Swedish
Swedes
Swedes are a Scandinavian nation and ethnic group native to Sweden, mostly inhabiting Sweden and the other Nordic countries, with descendants living in a number of countries.-Etymology:...
settlers to North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
in 1638 to establish the colony of New Sweden
New Sweden
New Sweden was a Swedish colony along the Delaware River on the Mid-Atlantic coast of North America from 1638 to 1655. Fort Christina, now in Wilmington, Delaware, was the first settlement. New Sweden included parts of the present-day American states of Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania....
. A replica of the ship was launched at Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley...
, in 1997.
History
The Kalmar Nyckel was constructed in about 1625 and was of a design called a pinnace. The ship was named after the city of KalmarKalmar
Kalmar is a city in Småland in the south-east of Sweden, situated by the Baltic Sea. It had 62,767 inhabitants in 2010 and is the seat of Kalmar Municipality. It is also the capital of Kalmar County, which comprises 12 municipalities with a total of 233,776 inhabitants .From the thirteenth to the...
, which purchased the ship in 1628 as its contribution to the Royal Swedish Navy
Swedish Navy
The Royal Swedish Navy is the naval branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. It is composed of surface and submarine naval units – the Fleet – as well as marine units, the so-called Amphibious Corps .In Swedish, vessels of the Swedish Navy are given the prefix "HMS," short for Hans/Hennes...
. When Sweden decided to establish a trading colony in the New World under the direction of Peter Minuit
Peter Minuit
Peter Minuit, Pieter Minuit, Pierre Minuit or Peter Minnewit was a Walloon from Wesel, in present-day North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, then part of the Duchy of Cleves. He was the Director-General of the Dutch colony of New Netherland from 1626 until 1633, and he founded the Swedish colony of...
, the Kalmar Nyckel was chosen for the voyage. A smaller vessel, the Fogel Grip
Fogel Grip
The Fogel Grip was a Swedish sailing ship originally built in the Netherlands in the early 1600s. She was used on the first Swedish expedition in 1638 together with the Kalmar Nyckel to establish the colony of New Sweden.-The ship:Little is known about the vessel. Fogel Grip was a Full rigged...
(Griffin Bird), accompanied her.
The ships sailed from Gothenburg
Gothenburg
Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...
in December 1637, commanded by Jan Hindriksen van der Water, but encountered a severe storm in the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
and had to divert to the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
for repairs. They departed on New Year's Day 1638, arriving in North America in March 1638.
A second voyage, which departed on February 7, 1640, and arrived at Fort Christina
Fort Christina
Fort Christina was the first Swedish settlement in North America and the principal settlement of the New Sweden colony...
on April 17, brought additional settlers for New Sweden. One of them was Reorus Torkillus
Reorus Torkillus
Reorus Torkillus was the first Lutheran clergyman to settle in what would become the United States.-Biography:Torkillus was born at Mölndal, near Gothenburg, Sweden in 1608. He studied for the ministry at Lidköping and Skara in Sweden...
, the first Lutheran clergyman in New Sweden. The Kalmar Nyckel made four successive round trips from Sweden, a record unchallenged by any other colonial vessel. She later served the Royal Swedish Navy in the Swedish-Danish War, then was used as a merchant ship. She was lost at sea in the late 17th century. There are conflicting reports on where she was lost. One says she sank off the coast of the city of Kalmar, while another says she was lost in the North Sea off the coast of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
The modern Kalmar Nyckel
Thomas C. Gillmer
Thomas C. Gillmer was a naval architect and the author of books about modern and historical naval architecture. He was born in Warren, Ohio on July 17, 1911. At his family's summer cottage near Lake Erie in Ohio, he learned to sail a 14-foot sloop by himself. He graduated from Warren High School,...
, Melbourne Smith, Joel Webster, and Ken Court, was built at a shipyard in Wilmington on the Christina River
Christina River
The Christina River is a tributary of the Delaware River, approximately 35 miles long, in northern Delaware in the United States, also flowing through small areas of southeastern Pennsylvania and northeastern Maryland. Near its mouth the river flows past downtown Wilmington, Delaware,...
near the original 1638 Swedish settlers' landing site at Fort Christina. She was launched on September 28, 1997, and commissioned on May 9, 1998. The re-creation measures 94 feet (28.7 m) on deck and 131 feet (39.9 m) overall, with a 25 feet (7.6 m) beam
Beam (nautical)
The beam of a ship is its width at the widest point. Generally speaking, the wider the beam of a ship , the more initial stability it has, at expense of reserve stability in the event of a capsize, where more energy is required to right the vessel from its inverted position...
, a 12 feet (3.7 m) draft
Draft (hull)
The draft of a ship's hull is the vertical distance between the waterline and the bottom of the hull , with the thickness of the hull included; in the case of not being included the draft outline would be obtained...
, and a displacement
Displacement (fluid)
In fluid mechanics, displacement occurs when an object is immersed in a fluid, pushing it out of the way and taking its place. The volume of the fluid displaced can then be measured, as in the illustration, and from this the volume of the immersed object can be deduced .An object that sinks...
of 300 ton
Ton
The ton is a unit of measure. It has a long history and has acquired a number of meanings and uses over the years. It is used principally as a unit of weight, and as a unit of volume. It can also be used as a measure of energy, for truck classification, or as a colloquial term.It is derived from...
s.
The ship is operated and maintained by a volunteer staff, under the leadership of a paid captain, boatswain
Boatswain
A boatswain , bo's'n, bos'n, or bosun is an unlicensed member of the deck department of a merchant ship. The boatswain supervises the other unlicensed members of the ship's deck department, and typically is not a watchstander, except on vessels with small crews...
, and a chief mate
Chief Mate
A Chief Mate or Chief Officer, usually also synonymous with the First Mate or First Officer , is a licensed member and head of the deck department of a merchant ship...
. In November 2006, the captain of the Kalmar Nyckel, David W. Hiott, who had commanded her for nine seasons, died from the effects of recurring melanoma
Melanoma
Melanoma is a malignant tumor of melanocytes. Melanocytes are cells that produce the dark pigment, melanin, which is responsible for the color of skin. They predominantly occur in skin, but are also found in other parts of the body, including the bowel and the eye...
. Captain Lauren Morgens took over on April 1, 2007, with Sharon Litcofsky as Chief Mate and Relief Captain. Volunteers maintain the ship, run the education program, and sail her from port to port.
Symphony
In 1986, composer Benjamin LeesBenjamin Lees
Benjamin Lees was a contemporary U.S. composer of Art music, born in Harbin, China, raised in San Francisco and lived in Palm Springs, California.-Early life:...
was commissioned to write a symphony to honor the founding of Wilmington, Delaware. Lees named the resulting work Symphony No. 5: Kalmar Nyckel. The piece was nominated for a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
in 2003, following release of a recording by the German orchestra Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz.
Ship's Cats
Toolbox is the senior ship's cat and officially a warrant officer with the title of 'Captain's Assistant.' The offspring of a feral cat, she was born in a toolbox while the ship was under construction in 1997. She has always lived on the ship and therefore has the greatest accumulated sea time of any member of the crew. A celebrity in her own right, she is the star of two books. In addition, a number of other cats have served with the Kalmar Nyckel at various times, including Clew Garnet, Lagan, and the current junior ship's cat, Timmynocky (a word unknown in SwedishSwedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
, but said to mean 'thingamabob').
See also
- Måns AnderssonMåns AnderssonMåns Andersson , was a pioneer in the Swedish colony of New Sweden.-Biography:During October 1639, Måns Andersson left Gothenburg on the ship Kalmar Nyckel heading to New Sweden. He had been hired as a laborer at the rate of 50 Dutch guilders per year. He, his wife, and one daughter, Britta,...
- Ship replicaShip replicaA ship replica is a reconstruction of a no longer existing ship. Replicas can range from authentically reconstructed, fully seaworthy ships, to ships of modern construction that give an impression of an historic vessel...
(including a list of ship replicas) - Götheborg (ship), a sailing replica of an 18th-century Swedish East Indiaman