Built as an oceanographic research vessel by the BOEL yard in Temse, Belgium for the Royal Belgium Navy.
Launched as the ZÉNOBE GRAMME (A 958).
Displacement 136 ton, dim. 28.15 x 6.85 x 2.80m. (draught)
One 6-cyl. auxiliary diesel engine 230 hp, speed under engine, 8 knots.
Bermuda ketch rigged, sail area 700m²
1961 Delivered to the Belgium Navy.
The Sail Training Ship Zénobe Gramme was originally designed as an
oceanographic research vessel by the naval architect Van Dijck and was built in
1961 at the former Boel shipyards in Temse, Belgium. She is named after the
scientist Zénobe Gramme, the inventor of the dynamo (1869). She was used as
a research vessel until 1970, since then she has exclusively been used as a
sail training and public relations vessel.
BNS Zénobe Gramme, a 29 m (92 ft) Bermuda Ketch, is owned and operated by
the Belgian Navy.
The ship has been adopted by the Bruxelles Royal Yacht Club. Her home port is
the Belgian Naval base in Zeebrugge. The crew consists of 1 Officer, 6
crewmembers and 10 trainees.
She participated in The Tall Ships Races for the first time in 1972 has been a
regular participant ever since. She won the Cutty Sark Trophy in 1976 and the
Hans Reith Memorial Trophy and the Sail Training International Ince Trophy in
2003. She has covered 300.000 Nautical miles (557.000 km) since 1961 till September 2008.
Total of sailing hours since commissioned, 30,061 hours till September 2008.
Belgium 2012 sg?, scott?
Source: http://www.yachtweb.be/yachting/zenobegramme.pdf. Belgium Navy web-site.
The name on the stamp is wrong, KNAAR did not exist, but it has to be KNARR.
A Viking merchant ship that traded to Iceland, Greenland, England and southern Europe from the 8th century until the end of the Middle Ages.
Used as cargo vessels but also to transport settlers and their belongings and cattle across the seas.
She was clinker built, strengthened by frames and double thwarts.
She was steered by a large quarter rudder; tiller brought over the gunwale.
Double ended with tall curved stem and sternpost.
Decked forward and aft with an open hold in the amidships.
One mast stepped amidships, carried a woollen square sail reinforces with strips of walrus or sealskin; taking spar extended the sail.
The knarr could also be rowed via ports.
Crew up to 50.
Reported lengths 13 – 34 metre; e.g. 25 x 6.2 x 3m.
The only knar found to be well preserved was in a shallow canal in the Roskilde Fjord, Denmark in 1962.
Togo 2000 425F sg?, scott?
Source: Wikipedia. Aak to Zumbra, a Dictionary of the World’s Watercraft.




