Polang / Brave the Waves - Damen STV 2630 - Sail Training Ship

For many years the Chinese navy did not have a large sail training ship. Perhaps it is a revelation from history. Some people called for both an aircraft carrier and a sail training ship. The sail training ship plays an irreplaceable role in training ocean sailing skills, inheriting naval culture and conducting military exchanges. Most of the people who have boarded the sail training ship have the feeling that standing on the sail training ship they are crossing into history, which will make people understand the meaning of the navy more deeply.

The name of the ship is a bit of a challenge. It is frequently reported at "Yong-gan Bo-làng" which might be rendered as "Brave the Waves", taking the meaning of "taking the wind and braving the waves". Or it could be rendered as “Broken Wave” or "Breaking Wave" or "Courageous Wave." The matter seemed settled by the ship's emblem revealed in early 2019, which rendered with name simply as "Pohang", simply "Wave".

On May 17, 2016, China's first sail training ship was officially started in the Nansha factory area of Guangzhou Shipyard International. Zhou Yusheng, general manager of Guangzhou Shipyard International, Huang Qian, deputy general manager, and military representatives attended the groundbreaking ceremony. The sail training ship was to be launched at the end of 2017, After overcoming many problems such as the lack of experience in the construction of similar ships in China, it was finally completed and delivered after more than two years. The ship was in the water and fitting out as of March 2018, and under way by early 2019.

The Sail Training Ship is the first naval training ship of the Chinese Navy, designed as a three-masted all-purpose fast sailing ship. It is attached to a training ship detachment of the Dalian Naval Academy of Ships.

It has complete functions, complete facilities and good seaworthiness, mainly used for naval internship training for naval academies and sailors. The 2630 sail training ship is an advanced, mature and reliable training sailboat designed and built by the Dutch Damen Shipyard. It is known as “the most modern traditional flying shear ship”. The ship is a three-sail steel sailboat with a total length of 85 meters, a displacement of 1,200 tons, a maximum sail area of 2,630 square meters, a maximum speed of 18 knots, and only 25 crew members can sail safely. The Chinese Navy's Wave Carrier Sail Training Ship is designed and built on the basis of the 2630 sailing design. It also incorporates Chinese national characteristics in its exterior decoration.

The navy's basic combat units are ships, and each warship has dozens of people. Only the crew can work closely to play the fighting power of the ship. Therefore, the navy is the military that needs the most cooperation. The sail training ship is recognized by the navies of various countries as a weapon to cultivate team spirit. The Navy is a military service that values cultural traditions. Compared with hardware elements such as warships, warplanes, and missiles, software elements such as naval warfare theory, naval tradition, and ocean complex are often harder to cultivate. These software elements are part of building a strong navy.

Because the shape of the sailboat is rich in affinity and is also suitable for diplomatic visits, it is not a deterrent as a warship full of weapons, and more representative of a country's maritime culture. When the sail training ship is moored in the port, towering masts and traditional hulls are often more attractive to foreigners than modern warships.

The navy is a service that needs to be built and consolidated for generations or even generations. Ocean consciousness and nautical culture are not shaped in a short time. Therefore, the sail training ship is not only the object of the nostalgia of the traditional naval powers, but also bears the ardent expectations of passing on the traditional nautical culture from generation to generation.

The training ship is a service ship for internship training for naval academy trainees or ship personnel. Although the sail has long been eliminated in the modern navy, the sail training ship can still provide a lot of exercise unlike ordinary training. From the most basic climbing masts to the final training of the whole process, coupled with ocean sailing, the experience of ocean sailing can not only enable the trainees to practice the theoretical knowledge they have learned at school, but also exercise and train the courage and confidence of officers and men. The process of sail training is the process of organization, command and coordination, and also the process of training team spirit.

The Navy is a service that takes a generation or even generations to build. The use of the ancient sailing control method of the sail training ship can continuously improve the intrinsic quality of the trainees and is an effective way to cultivate the naval tradition. The sail training ship helps naval officers to know and become familiar with the ocean faster and better. "Ocean perception" is an important subject of the sail training ship. By driving the sailboat and sailing with the sea, the trainees can form a comprehensive understanding of the integration of people, ships and seas by experiencing the influence of meteorology, hydrology, tides and ocean currents on maritime military operations.

The sail training ship also helps the Navy trainees master basic navigation skills. On the sail training ship, the students learn from the most primitive sailor work, and can get the most basic navigation skills training such as watching the sky, knowing the hydrology, playing knots, climbing the mast.

The sail training ship helps to promote communication between the international navies. The Navy is an international service. Inviting foreign military personnel to participate in maritime training has become a common practice in the international community. Compared with modern high-end naval vessels, the sail training ship is relatively "simple" and equipped with only a small amount of equipment for defense. There are no secrets, which facilitates "accessible" communication between the navies.

A strong navy must develop high-end naval equipment, cultivate high-quality naval talents, and attach importance to fostering a strong naval culture. Some military experts have said that a country and a nation that is unfamiliar with the ocean cannot truly possess and use the navy. It can buy the best warships, but it cannot buy ocean consciousness and naval warfare theory. The sail training ship can just teach this lesson.

By mid-2019, this ship remained curiously low visibility. While the Chinese normally are ostentatiously proud of their naval achievements, there has been a curious absence of braggadocio. One Chinese source mentioned in passing that there were difficulties encountered in the construction of this unfamiliar type of hull. And while there are a few photographs of the ship underway, and a few photographs of unfurled sails, by September 2019 there were no photographs of the ship under way under sail.