- ZEBU
The World In
One Ship
- ZEBU
The World In
One Ship
A Genuine Merchantman EMAIL SHIP
ZEBU was built in Raa, Sweden, in 1938, to carry timber between Sweden and the Baltic States. She traded under sail for 30 years out of Swedish and Danish Ports.
Historic Square-Rig.
In the 1980s ZEBU adopted a new role as Adventure Flagship of the International Youth Expedition ‘Operation Raleigh’. She was re-rigged for her Voyage Round the World by the distinguished team of Square-rig Masters and Master Riggers who re-rigged the Clipper Ship Cutty Sark at Greenwich, so her rig is authentic to circa 1870. Recent re-rigging work has meticulously followed the standards set by the Cutty Sark team. Veteran Square-Rig Master Captn. Godfrey Wickstead explained: "We wanted all these young people who were going to take her round the world to have the real experience of square-rig, as it would have been in the 19th Century".
Adventuring Round the World.
During Operation Raleigh ZEBU sailed 69,000 miles on a 4-year Circumnavigation, crewed by a total of 346 Young Venturers from 23 Nations, and visiting 41 Countries. Venturers carried out environmental, social and marine archaeological work around the world, crewing ZEBU on Trans-oceanic Passages, encountering deep-sea conditions ranging from glorious running down the trade-winds to a terrifying typhoon in the Tasman Sea which tore away spars and sails.
ZEBU put into remote tropical islands like the Solomons, where tribal chiefs escorted the Ship into their lagoon in out-rigger canoes and laid out a traditional feast for her crew (who had come to help build a community hospital); received a full-on media reception in every Japanese port; Venturers experienced the extraordinary ecosystem of the Galapagos Islands, surveyed wildlife in the Serengeti from hot-air balloons, and built aerial walkways for rainforest canopy research in Amazonia. Raleigh International confirm that an uncommonly high proportion of former ZEBU Venturers (over 60%) are recorded as going on into Youth Leadership work, motivated and inspired by their experiences aboard ZEBU to pass on to their peers how their own life perspective was changed forever by their experiences aboard ZEBU.
A World in One Ship for the World in One City.
It is specially appropriate that ZEBU now sails out of Liverpool. The City recently won the title of European Capital of Culture 2008. The winning theme "The World in One City" reflects how Liverpool has absorbed dozens of ethnic communities, all of whom settled in the City through seafaring, to become a cultural melting pot where diversity is celebrated. It began with the Baltic Timber Trade in the 17th Century, founding a Scandinavian community here. By remarkable synchronicity, ZEBUs Circumnavigation took her to every country of origin of populations who have enriched Liverpool’s community culture - and to countries such as Australia and New Zealand which now have a substantial ex-pat Liverpool population. Adding her international crew to the equation, together with the involvement of many overseas students in her recent refit - ZEBU is definitively The World in One Ship.
