They'd been taken by surprise by a feisty hurricane roming the east coast of USA. The 98 meter long steel barque based in Bergen, Norway, which among other things operates as a training ship, was on its way to shore just outside Norfolk, Virginia. -We have three types of weather-report systems on-board, and we'd just received a report projecting a 30 knots storm.

Hurricane

But later that night the wind unexpectedly doubled in force, to about 70 knots we measured, and that's a hurricane. We laid about 120 nautical miles east of the pilot station, just outside Norfolk, Captain Jarle Flatebø explains. The drama spawned sunday night the 2nd. of november, but the incident was not reported on in the papers until tuesday.

Lemkuhl has the steering wheel on deck and no steering positions indoor. 

– "It was impossible to stay outdoor. When the wind goes up until 60 knots you're able to master some tasks on deck, but if it gets any stronger you can't do a thing. We had a lot of over-sea, and we strapped the helm and battened down the hatches so that everything was in order if the ship should take in water", Flatebø says.

– "A while there, we had no steering, but we wnt by the engine and three staysails. We positioned us up against the weather and planned to go to port this way. The ship positioned itselves in such a way that the waves were entering the bow", Flatebø continues.

The captin goes on to explain – "But not all waves were entering from the same direction. In the aftermath we saw gauge showing a 50 degree ship angle after a wave hit the bow at some point back. The waves must have been somewhere inbetween 10 to 15 meters in height". There's a lot of noise from such a hurricane; especially since the sails are wacking all the time, and it is impossible to give orders when all this is going on. 

–"We're loosing a sail!" The captain shouts to the men on the aft-deck. The 68 cadettes from Sjøkrigsskolen in Bergen, the regular crew, and the 8 students from Bergen maritime videregående skole, they all knew what to do. 

The three stay-sails got torned apart in the furious wind and several other sails that were rolled together and fastened blew out, tearing those apart as well. Good thing we brought with us two full sets of spare sails, so the torn sails could be changed after a while there, but we had to order new reserve sets from Norway".

Solid ship

The captins asures us that the 100 year old ship did very well at sea. They've checked everything thouroghly and found no damages to the ship apart from those of the sails. -" You know; once upon a time, ships like these were buildt according to ample measures... and then some. You see, today, ships are built up until the measures on would only dare", the Captain Flatebø lets us know. 

The ship went out from Bergen the 23rd of september and the first stop was at the islands of Cape Verde, just outside the west coast of Africa. From thereof the ship leaned into the steady easterly surface wind called the Trade Wind, which brought it over the Atlantic to Bermuda. From thereof the boat has been operating i American waters, just outside Balitmore.This is the eighth year the boat does this trip. 

– "I seen this before", Flatebø adds. – ".. and that was back in 1976, when the sailing ship Christian Radich sailed in the Biscay. That was a considerable smaller boat and even stronger wind. I was an ordinary seaman and we rode off a hurricane of 90 knots strength.The hurricane went on for a whole day, and Caption Kjell Thorsen was appointed Man of the Year in a major Norwegian newspaper".

Related: Statsraad Lehmkuhl in storm north of Scotland,