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.
In fact, the previous Sagres was launched in Bremerhaven (1896), with the name Rickmer Rickmers. In 1916, when Germany declared war to Portugal, this ship was seized in Azores. The ship was named Flores and was made available to, and used by, the British, for transportation purposes. In 1924, her use as a merchant ship ceased and she was incorporated in the Portuguese Navy as a training vessel, with the name Sagres. This explains why sometimes, particularly abroad, the present training ship Sagres is called Sagres II, although that does not reflect the truth. In reality there was another previous ship of the Portuguese Navy with the name Sagres. She was a wooden full-rigged ship built in England at the shipyards of Messrs. Young, Son and Maggnay, Limehouse, in 1858. From 1884 to 1898 this corvette was used as a training ship, while at anchor at Douro River, near Porto.
Albert Leo Schlageter (1937-1948)
Albert Leo Schlageter shipbuilding contract between the German Navy and Blohm & Voss shipyards was signed on 2 December 1936. The ship was laid down on 15 July 1937, launched two and a half months later, on 30 October of the same year and commissioned on 12 February 1938. The ship left harbour for her maiden training cruise on 20 March 1938, but two days later, under dense fog, she collided with the steamship Trojan Star on Dover Strait. Albert Leo Schlageter still performed other training cruises before the war, two of them in South Atlantic waters as well. During the major part of wartime the ship remained moored in Kiel and she was used for seamanship and navigation training onboard.
Facing the need to improve the seamanship qualities of their crews, the German Navy decided in 1944 to reinitiate sailing cruises with the ship in the Baltic Sea, which was considered a relatively safe area to navigate by then. It was however during one of these training cruises that Albert Leo Schlageter hit a mine. The accident occurred under stormy weather on 4 November 1944, and 18 members of the crew lost their life. The ship could recover from the damage in virtue of her construction design with watertight bulkheads and compartment areas - a major requirement of this German sailing ships class construction - as well as being in the company of Horst Wessel.
Some days before the War was over, with the repairs already concluded, Albert Leo Schlageter went to Flensburg. This was a fortunate decision, and a major contributing factor for the ship to stay in existence today as the city of Kiel, including the Naval Base and all the ships at anchor or moored there, were almost completely destroyed by the British aviation bombings during the last days of the conflict.
Under German flag, the ship had the following Commanding Officers:
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Fregattenkapitan Bernhard Rogge (Fevereiro de 1938 - Setembro de 1939)
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Kapitan zur See Joachim Asmus (Janeiro de 1944 - Novembro de 1944)
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Korvettenkapitan Johann Reckoff (Abril de 1945 - Maio de 1945)
Guanabara (1948-1962)
In 1948, Albert Leo Schlageter was sold by the United States to Brazil for a symbolic amount of 5,000 $US. However, after the Brazilian flag was hoisted onboard while the ship was in Bremerhaven she had to be towed to Rio de Janeiro due to the need of major repairs. Approximately one month later the ship went the Guanabara Bay for the first time. The name of the famous Brazilian bay would also become the name of the ship from the moment she was commissioned by the Brazilian Navy on 27 October 1948, after the repairs were completed. As a training ship and before being sold to Portugal in 1961, Guanabara sailed regularly along the Brazilian coast. Montevideu, Uruguai, was the only port visited abroad, in 1949. Ten years later, on 21 July 1959, the ship made her last active service trip while in the Brazilian Navy. On 30 November 1960, the ship was officially decommissioned.
Two years after Guanabara had ceased her activity, the Portuguese Government succeeded to acquire her, greatly due to the efforts undertaken by Dr. Pedro Teotónio Pereira - Portuguese Presidency Minister at the time. The major objective was for the ship to replace the old Sagres that was not in adequate condition to ensure her continued use for training cruises. The transfer contract was signed on October 10, 1961, involving the amount of 150,000 US$. This was the day that the Brazilian flag was hoisted down for the last time onboard.
Under Brazilian flag, the ship had the following Commanding Officers:
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Cap. - Frag. Pedro Paulo de Araújo Suzano (27OUT48)
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Cap. - Frag. Daniel dos Santos Parreira (08NOV49)
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Cap. - Frag. Augusto Lopes da Cruz (22SET50)
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Cap. - Frag. Levy Penna Aarão Reis (10JAN51)
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Cap. - Frag. Osmar Almeida de Azeredo Rodrigues (02FEV52)
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Cap. - Frag. Ernesto de Mello Baptista (05FEV53)
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Cap. - Frag. Maurício Dantas (24FEV54)
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Cap. - Frag. Oscar Lopes Fabião (18MAR55)
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Cap. - Frag. Mário Carneiro Esposel (24MAR56)
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Cap. - Frag. Alberto Pimentel (14JUN57)
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Cap. - Frag. Ernesto Mourão de Sá (15ABR59)
Sagres (since 1962)
By legal document of 30 January 1962 the training ship Sagres was commissioned in the Portuguese Navy while the previous training ship with the same name was renamed "Santo André", becoming a store ship. The official commissioning ceremony, however, could only take on 8 February 1962, when the last captain of the previous Sagres (LCDR Silva Horta) took command of the ship.
With the acquisition of the actual Sagres, the Portuguese Navy could accomplish the main objective of keeping a sail training ship in their fleet to allow for the continued seamanship training at sea of their future officers, as a complement of their technical and academic education received at the Naval Academy.
The ship left harbour for the first time under Portuguese flag on 25 April 1962, to arrive in Lisbon on 23 June, after a short stop in Recife (Brazil), Mindelo (Cape Vert Islands) and Funchal (Madeira).
Sagres has undertaken training cruises with cadets from the Naval Academy Since every year since 1962, with the exception of 1987 and 1991 when major repairs and refits were performed.
Besides her cadets training mission, Sagres is also regularly used abroad as an itinerant Ambassador of Portugal and representative of the Portuguese Navy. She has already undertaken two circumnavigation voyages (1978/79 and 1983/84), as well as other longer cruises with periods of more than five months at sea, including Colombo's regatta (1992), the celebrations of the 450th anniversary of the Portuguese arrival to Japan (1993) and 500th anniversary of the discovery of Brazil (2000).
Under Portuguese flag, the ship had the following Commanding Officers:
- Cap.-Ten. Henrique Afonso da Silva Horta (08FEV62)
- Cap.-Frag. Daniel Farrajota Rocheta (29SET65)
- Cap.-Frag. José Fernando Ferreira da Costa (03OUT69)
- Cap.-Frag. Eurico Serradas Duarte (14NOV73)
- Cap.-Frag. José Fernando Ferreira da Costa (28MAI74)
- Cap.-Mar-e-Guerra Fernando Miranda Gomes (05MAI75)
- Cap.-Frag. José Fernandes Martins e Silva (15NOV76)
- Cap.-Frag. Engrácio Lopes Cavalheiro (21JAN80)
- Cap.-Frag. António Luciano Homem de Gouveia (17DEZ82)
- Cap.-Frag. José Manuel Castanho Paes (14ABR86)
- Cap.-Mar-e-Guerra José Manuel Malhão Pereira (06OUT89)
- Cap.-Frag. José Armando Rodrigues Leite (22JAN93)
- Cap.-Frag. Duarte José Cruz de Castro Centeno (10OUT95)
- Cap.-Frag. António Maya Dias Pinheiro (07OUT98)
- Cap.-Frag. António Carlos Vieira Rocha Carrilho (04SET01)
- Cap.-Frag. José Luís Pimentel Antunes do Vale Matos (25OUT05)
- Cap.-Frag. Luís Pedro Pinto Proença Mendes (06NOV07)