THE GOTHEBORG III PROJECT

Shipyard, Rebuilding and to China and Back

Back home in Gothenburg the 9 June 2007

The Gotheborg III arrives back home June 9, 2007 after its epic journey to China and back.
Photo © Jan-Erik Nilsson 2007

A few days ago a long time dream was fulfilled and I can't help making some space here to be able to share this with you. It's the closure of a long time project I have had the pleasure helping to start during the critical first 5 years 1993-1998, when this ship building project - on our own initiative - was brought from an idea of my friend Anders Wästfelt to a concept and a majestic hull, stretching its fingers towards the roof of our gigantic ships building hall on our own shipyard.

Now, after fourteen years she has completed her maiden voyage to China and back.

A few days ago she came back, and made her way safely all the way into the harbor of Gothenburg, something that did not work out that well the last time around in 1745, when she hit an underwater rock and sank. Pretty much on the same spot as where these pictures was taken. Thank you all who got to share our dream and made it all come true, more or less as we envisioned it.

I lack words for my gratitude to you whose expertise got her built, rigged, outfitted and safely brought all the way to China and back.

Please also extend a thought to all who were part of this at the start but are no longer with us. They knew it might take too long time for them to see her coming back, and maybe even to become launched or even carry sail on open water, but who gave this dream all support they could anyway. I think you somehow are still around to see this.

That is the true greatness without which this project would never have been possible.

Always remember your history.

Jan-Erik Nilsson
Original co-founder and initiator of this project.



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This page is one of currently about 1,500 Gotheborg.com GLOSSARY, Q&A, Exhibition or other INFO pages available on Gotheborg.com. This ship section contains a few of the original pages that was created by me during 1996-2000 in the early phase of the Rebuilding and China Voyage East Indiaman Gotheborg III Project and a number of follow up texts about what happened later. The reason for the name of this my web site - Gotheborg.com - is because of me being, mainly together with Anders and Berit Wästfelt, one of the few original volunteer co-founders that actually started the Gotheborg III project as described here. The project was a difficult thing to get off the ground (or into the sea) and after that, I kind of retired out of sheer exhaustion. I was head of historical research and conceptualization, and my intention was to use the ship to promote the use of Internet as a communication, business and network platform. My idea was to use the ship to market the website, not the other way around. This was completely not understood at the time but have been done by others by now, like Amazon, Facebook, Linkedin, eBay etc, and a few gizmoz that have not been done yet. But at the time, there were then no use for the domain name, so I kept it and decided to use it for my other personal interest and hobby - the study of Chinese export porcelain and our mutual history of trade and cultural exchange. All expressed opinions and observations are my own if not stated otherwise. Submitted material gratefully appears on this website due to the implied or expressed consent of the rights owners. All text and images are copyright © Jan-Erik Nilsson, Gothenburg, Sweden 1996-2019 unless otherwise stated. A larger screen allows larger images and better navigation. So it goes.