Magdalene Vinnen – Towards Falmouth

The year is 1933 and the German sailing ship Magdalene Vinnen clears Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) sailing towards Falmouth for her orders.

She carries a full cargo of Australian wool. In the language of the sea, a sailing ship was always described as sailing ‘towards’ her next port rather than ‘to’. No doubt the term was coined to better describe the sailer’s track across the ocean, which, due to prevailing winds caused her to sail many miles away from her ‘rhumb’ line. This vessel was built as a cargo carrying training ship in 1921, for the Vinnen Company of Bremen. Otto Neumann her second mate told me that as she only carried fuel for 18 days she used her auxiliary engine for leaving or entering port or to get through the equatorial belt of calms known as the Doldrums.

In 1938 the Nord Deutscher Lloyd Line bought her and renamed her Kommodore Johnson. She sailed only within the Baltic during the War.  In 1945 Russia claimed her as a war prize and renamed her Sedov. She continued in her new role as a pure training ship for the Department of Fisheries and ceased to carry cargo. Her ‘tween decks were converted to accommodation for the large contingent of cadets she would now carry and a row of portholes now pierces her sides. She is still afloat and to subsidise her running costs takes paying passengers. The pilot vessel in the background is the Captain Cook a familiar sight on Sydney Harbour and the small launch in the foreground is typical of a fleet of work-boats operated by Stannard Bros. Well known to those who frequented the waters of this great Port, they were used for a variety of tasks. In this case it is likely that a newspaper photographer has hired the boat – as a sailing ship leaving Sydney in 1933 was a rare sight indeed.