Sagres and Creoula Ships

Set of stamps

Souvenir sheet

Souvenir sheet

First Day Cover with stamps

First Day Cover with souvenir sheet

First Day Cover with souvenir sheet

Stamps issue brochure

Considered the most important symbols of Portuguese maritime identity, the sail training ship Sagres and the sea training ship Creoula both reach the exceptional age of 75 in 2012. The two were built in 1937, the former in Germany at the Blohm & Voss shipyards in Hamburg, the latter in Lisbon by Companhia União Fabril (CUF). What is now the Ship of the Portuguese Republic (Navio da República Portuguesa-NRP) Sagres was launched on October 30, 1937, under the name Albert Leo Schlageter. She served as a training ship for the German Navy until the end of World War II and in 1948 she was handed over to Brazil to mitigate the losses caused by German submarines during the war. Under the name Guanabara she served in the Brazilian Navy as a sail training ship until 1961, when she was acquired by Portugal to replace the old Sagres. The ship formally became a Portuguese Navy Ship on February 8, 1962, and therefore commemorates, in 2012, her 50th anniversary under the Portuguese flag. Besides her name, she also inherited from the previous sail training ship the legendary Cross of Christ emblazoned on her sails and the figurehead of Prince Henry the Navigator. A compendium of Portuguese knowledge and naval tradition, NRP Sagres is the mainstay of the Naval Academy in training future officers who learn to respect the sea and its ways. Her history is entangled with legend, and she has circled the globe three times, visited 166 ports in 60 countries and welcomed on board illustrious personalities and hundreds of thousands of visitors. Better known as our Itinerant Ambassador, she shows the Portuguese flag around the world, taking our culture, our values and a symbolic portion of native soil to the Portuguese communities scattered around the world. The Creoula was built for the Parceria Geral de Pescarias in just 62 working days and was launched on May 10, 1937. At a ceremony attended by President General Óscar Carmona, the Portuguese Navy was indelibly associated with the event by the Guard of Honour comprising sailors from the old Sagres, while the Navy Band played the National Anthem. That year, the Creoula set sail on her first fishing campaign along the banks of Newfoundland and Greenland where her fishermen caught cod single-handed from their tiny boats called dories. By the time her fishery cycle came to an end in 1973, the Creoula had caught about 23,000 tonnes of cod during 37 consecutive campaigns. No longer viable for fishing, she was acquired by the Government and then designated as Navy Auxiliary Unit (Unidade Auxiliar de Marinha-UAM) on March 20, 1987. Classified as a Sea Training Ship (Navio de Treino de Mar-NTM) and placed under the Ministry of Defence, she came to sail with youngsters selected by public and private institutions. During these 25 years NTM Creoula has been run and maintained by the Portuguese Navy and has provided sea training to nearly 15,000 young civilians, helping to spread knowledge and to awaken interest in seamanship. Since the ocean and its resources play an increasingly important role in the global economy, the Portuguese Navy is proud to preserve these two precious testimonies of our maritime heritage, two sail training ships closely linked with outstanding aspects of cohesion and national identity.

Technical Details

Date of Issue: 3 August 2012

Values: stamps of 0,32€ and 0,80€

Designer: Atelier B2

Printer: INCM

Process: Offset

Size: 30,6 x 40,0 mm

Perforation: Cross of Christ 13 x 13

Paper: FSC 110 g/m2

Watermark:

Sheet: with 50 stamps

Souvenir sheet: two souvenir sheets with stamps of 1,75€