The 60 meters (180 ft) long 3 masted bark, stv GUNILLA will soon arrive in St.Maarten-St.Martin and be on the Galisbay Pier in Marigot during an “open ship” day on Saturday March 16th, 2024 with free access to the public from 10 hrs in the morning until 4 h in the afternoon. (10.00 hrs – 16.00 hrs), the nonprofit association Caribbean Sail Training announced today.

As many CST member sail training vessels every season, Gunilla will be hosted again by the Port de Marigot / Galisbay. She is actually sailing from Suriname to Guadeloupe and to St.Martin after that.

The Swedish vessel Gunilla was launched in 1940 as a long-haul cargo ship. With the exception of a short time in the 50s, when the ship acted as a ferryboat, transporting both people and cars to Öland, she was sailing with cargo until the 90s.

 Tall Ship © Caribbean Sail Training

Gunilla was completely rebuilt in 1997 and started working as a Sail Training ship. She has a total sail area of 1000m” and holds a professional crew of 11 and 44 trainees/students.

The students work in three different watches on board and care of all the duties there are on a ship of this size, such as maintenance, climbing the rigging, handling the sails and work on deck. Life onboard T/S Gunilla offers a unique combination of theory and practice for the students.

The trainees/students are from the Öckerö Seglande Gymnasieskola, an upper secondary school for students aged 16-19 and a municipal school, financed by the Swedish state.

The school is located in the archipelago of Gothenburg, on the west coast of Sweden. The school has four different programs, all of which are three years long. Two of the programs aim at further studies at a university and the other two aim to make pupils ready for work on different sea vessels.

Apart from the ordinary school work at the school in Sweden, three of the programs spend as much as a total of six months on our school ship T/S Gunilla. The students in the fourth program do their training in the Swedish merchant fleet.

T/S Gunilla sails all year long taking our students from different programs on five separate trips each school year. Three trips are sailed by the students on the social science program and the other two by students on the science program together with students from the vocational program.

The firstgrade students on the social studies program sail from Spain to the USA making stops at The Canary Islands, Cape Verde, Bahamas, Grenada, Antigua, St.Martin and Suriname. In their second year they sail from Öckerö (Sweden) down to Cádiz (Spain) via Germany, France, England and Portugal. In their third year the journey begins and ends in the US with stops in Cuba, Belize, Mexico and New Orleans.

The first trip for the students on the science program and on the vocational program is sailed in the Mediterranean and takes them from Cádiz to Gibraltar, Barcelona (Spain), Corsica, Sardinia and signing off in Malaga. In their second year they sail from Miami to Öckerö (Sweden), stopping at Charleston, Bermuda, the Azores and Portsmouth, England.

Some changes have been applied in the regular itineraries this season.

Gunilla’s visit and open ship day has been scheduled on the same day as the “open door” of the Port de Marigot.

A private reception for the port authorities, government officials, press, VIP’s, invited guests and Caribbean Sail Training’s members is scheduled at 1700 hrs, after the ship’s open-door event.

more info and picture ……

by Caribbean Sail Training