Portugal's naval training ship NRP SAGRES outbound at Halifax,Nova Scotia on July 20th 2009.
MMSI: 263141000
Ship Type: Sailing Vessel/Naval Training
Length : 90 m,Beam:12 m,Draught 5.5 m.
The present training ship Sagres was built in 1937 at the Blohm & Voss shipyards, in Hamburg. Her original name was Albert Leo Schlageter and she was the third of a series of four ships procured at the time by the German Navy (Kriegsmarine). The other three ships were the Gorch Fock (1933) (Tovarish between 1952 and 2003) the Horst Wessel (1936) (now Eagle, belonging to the United States Coast Guard) and another ship, named Herbert Norkus (1939), that was never finished due to the war outbreak. Some of the rigging and spars of this last ship, including topmasts and yards, were later on installed onboard the present sail training vessel of the German Navy, the Gorch Fock (1958), built twenty years later of the previous sister-ships, but following the same design. Besides these ships, Blohm & Voss shipyards built another sail training vessel of this class (the Mircea (1938)) for the Romanian Navy.

After the end of World War II, the Horst Wessel and the Albert Leo Schlageter were kept by the United States of America (USA) as war prizes. However, despite the efforts undertaken by the US Commanding Officer at the Bremerhaven Naval Base, an USA institution willing to keep Albert Leo Schlageter could not be found. Thus, three years after, the ship was given to the Brazilian Navy as payoff for the damages caused by the German Navy submarines to their fleet during the war. In 1961 Portugal acquired the ship to replace the old training ship Sagres, a former German sailing vessel as well.
Flag: Portugal /Navy.
Call Sign: CTEC
Photo © Capnken 2009.