Cheryl Marie Cordeiro in front of the Swedish East Indiaman Götheborg III, visiting the Western Archipelago of Gothenburg, more or less on the same day, 280 years after its last departure to China in 1743.
Text and photo © Jan-Erik Nilsson, 2023
During a few days at the end of 2023, our Gotheborg III visited the archipelago where I live, very near Vargö Håla. It was interesting to see how these islands would have appeared from the ship at the time of the original's departure.
It was fun to see our ship again, much like bumping into an old friend with whom we shared the joy of planning and construction. I feel very blessed to have had so much of a lifelong dream come true.
You can't replace the experience of seeing a ship like this in real life and actually being allowed to walk around inside it, with any amount of reading.
My primary interest in this project was to understand the human side of the old trade in Chinese export porcelain.
The entire project and how it came along from my point of view, is more fully covered in the sections above.
Here are few pictures from this recent 2023 visit to the Western Archipelago of the city of Gothenburg, from where the original Gotheborg departed in the winter of 1743.
Here are a few pictures from this recent 2023 visit to the Western Archipelago of the city of Gothenburg, from where the original Gotheborg departed in the winter of 1743
The 16 reconstructed 6 lbs cannons on the East Indiaman Gotheborg was cast by DAROS in 1996 in support of the project. Their weight is 700 kg and would take a charge of 1.5 kg of black powder to be fired. A number of canon balls was also supplied by DAROS together with the canons. I don't know if anyone ever tried to fire any of these with a canon ball in it, but I think it would actually work. I can't see why not. The canons are first class cast iron and made to original specification.
All text and pictures copyright Jan-Erik Nilsson 2006, GOTHEBORG.COM