A prestigious Polish ship, the Dar Młodzieży, has docked at the V&A Waterfront in commemoration of the centenary celebrations of Polish independence. The premier-class shipped docked in at the V &A Waterfront harbour on 15 August and will be setting sail once again on its world tour on 17 August 2018 after 3pm.
The Dar Młodzieży is a famous ship that was built in 1982 and has a unique design and length, measuring at 50 metres tall and 95 metres long.
The crew of the ship and its patrons are traveling along international waters to share what Poland represents and to encourage others to travel to the Eastern European nation.
The Dar Młodzieży is scheduled to visit 22 ports over the course of 10 months, and the crew plans to return to Poland in March 2019.
The ship will be managed and maintained by 1 000 people, while 600 of them are maritime students from the Northern Polish cities of Gydnia and Szczencin.
The choice to include Polish students was compounded by the 34th celebration of International Youth Day which will be held in Panama in January 2019. Four-hundred of the ship’s staff members won their spots on the ship in a competition that required a strong knowledge of Polish history and naval sciences.
The ship and its crew are scheduled head to Mauritius next, and then further on to Jakarta in Indonesia, continuing on to San Francisco and more city shores until they reach home. So far, the crew has travelled to Copenhagen, Bordeaux, Dakar, Tenerife, Bremerhaven, Szczecin and Stavanger.
The Department of Transport Deputy minister, Sindisiwe Chikunga, welcomed the ship at the dock in Cape Town where celebrations by the Polish government and crew took place on Wednesday to mark its independence.
The Polish tall ship Dar Mloziezy was welcomed to the Port of Cape Town this morning as part of her worldwide Independence Cruise to promote Poland in 18 ports around the world and to mark Poland’s 100 years of independence since November 1918. pic.twitter.com/d9pmdcFHJ0
— Transnet NPA (@TransnetNPA) August 15, 2018
Polish South Africans and diaspora took to celebrate the country’s independence as it docked on the shores of the Mother City.
Picture: Facebook/the Dar Młodzieży/Twitter