Two Poles from Gdansk

Strange Vessel in Montrose  – Off the Heritage Dock in Montrose Harbor – a beautiful day in early October of 1991: on ESMERALDA motoring toward the harbor entrance we saw a strange vessel tied to the West Wall. We had to check her out. We made some noise as we tied off her port side. Two men came up the companionway speaking Polish. Captain Jerzy Wasowicz and Andrzej Sochaj had just arrived from Gdansk. The boat was originally a fishing trawler built in 1953. They found her washed up on a beach in the Baltic in 1980. Restoring her over the next decade, they had made it as far as Chicago on their way around the globe.

 

The good ship ANTICA – After stops in Detroit and Milwaukee, ANTICA made it to Chicago with a crew exhausted and out of cash. Once the Chicago Polish community discovered her, it turned into a month-long party. Fund-raisers were held at Przybylo’s
White Eagle Restaurant in Niles and the Polish Consulate. A month later, and with masts lowered for the trip down the Mississippi, she left Chicago with best wishes from the “second largest Polish city in the world” and a modestly restored bankroll.

 

Thirty members of the Heritage Boat Club got to sail on ANTICA off the Chicago lakefront the day after she arrived. The boat was heavy, stout and a testimony to what could be accomplished under a communist regime with sheer grit.

 

The crew had worked in a shipyard in Gdansk. Restoration took ten years - the journey around the world another seven. The toughest challenge was sailing through Cape Horn. But with help from the Chilean Navy (another tale) she was able to finally make it into the Pacific.