Sailing vessel Druzhba will be repaired and transferred to the Institute of the Navy, – Zelenskyy

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the training sailing vessel Druzhba will be repaired and transferred to the Odesa Institute of the Naval Forces.

The training and passenger vessel Druzhba will be repaired and transferred to the Institute of Naval Forces of the Odesa Maritime Academy, Dumskaya reports with reference to the statement of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“The sailing vessel Druzhba is very important for the training of our sailors, so we will transfer it to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. It will be repaired so that the cadets can use it for maritime practice,” said the Head of state.

Druzhba has been idle for almost 20 years in the Practical harbor of the Odesa port. This is the only vessel of its kind, which is listed in the Ukrainian Navy. The sailing vessel crossed the Atlantic Ocean twice, and in 1990 120 cadets of the Odesa Maritime Academy visited the United States on it for a friendly meeting with colleagues from the maritime academies of Maine and Massachusetts.

Previously, the sailing vessel Druzhba was supposed to be presented at the international yacht festival, but the technical condition of the vessel did not allow this to be done. Then the organizers of the event organized a fundraiser for the restoration of the sailing vessel.

The training sailing vessel Druzhba is the main one in a series of five sailing vessels of the same type, built at the Gdansk shipyard for the USSR. The vessel was launched in 1987. Length of the vessel – 108.6 m; the number of sails is 26, their total area is 3,000 m.