The Gil Eannes Foundation today celebrates the 22nd anniversary of the arrival of the Gil Eannes Hospital Ship to Viana do Castelo, after being rescued from scrap dealer Batista & Irmãos S.A., in a purchase of 250 thousand euros.
It received deep works, with funds raised from institutions, companies and citizens, and was inaugurated in August 1998.
To mark that day, the Gil Eannes Foundation has programmed the celebrations to take place over three days.
The first is today with free visits to the Museum Ship throughout the day and at 6:00 pm on the ship, the book “Gil Eannes – Anjo do Mar” by João David Batel Marques, captain of the merchant navy, born in Aveiro, is presented. author of four volumes on the history of cod fishing.
At 9:30 pm, time for the hospital ship to become a theater stage for the first time in three days, with the presentation of the staging “Gil Santareno Eannes” by Teatro do Noroeste – CDV.
Photo: Disclosure
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The play deals with the connection of Bernardo Santareno to the hospital ship, where he served as a doctor in 1959. In addition to medicine, he was one of the greatest Portuguese playwrights of the 20th century, marking the centenary of his birth in 2020.
The second day, February 1, brings us the presentation of the children’s book “Mia a Bordo” by Francisca Lima, starting at 10:00 am.
At 9:30 pm, the play about the medical writer returns to the scene, as well as on February 2, starting at 7:30 pm.
Opening of 27 new spaces
In addition to the commemorative events, the cabin of the doctor Bernardo Santareno on the hospital ship is one of the 27 spaces that opens, on Friday, on board the ship that Viana do Castelo transformed into a museum.
João Lomba da Costa, from the board of directors the Gil Eannes foundation, which manages the vessel, explained to Lusa that the intervention, carried out in the last two years, represented an investment of around 200 thousand euros.
In addition to the box of the doctor Martinho do Rosário, who, with the literary pseudonym Bernardo Santareno, became one of the most well-known Portuguese playwrights, opens the hospital library, laundry, pharmacy, drying house, ironing, pantry and the wards.
“With the reconstitution of those spaces, as they were when Gil Eannes was built by the shipyards, in 1955, the rehabilitation of the ship’s exhibition areas is completed”, stated João Lomba da Costa.
Born in Viana, in 1955
The Gil Eannes Hospital Ship has been open to the public as a Museum Ship since 1998, after performing the important mission of supporting the cod fishing fleet by line fishing in the seas of Newfoundland and Greenland.
It was classified by TripAdvisor as the 7th best museum at national level in the Travelers ’Choice Awards and reached, since it is a museum, the milestone of one million visitors in December 2019.
It was built in 1955, in the extinct Shipyards of Viana do Castelo (ENVC), to support the Portuguese cod fleet in the seas of Terra Nova and Greenland.
Photo: Gil Eannes Foundation Archive
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It was also a captain ship, mail ship, tugboat, guaranteeing supplies of supplies, nets, bait and fuel to cod fishing vessels.
Rescued from scrap
The return to the capital of Alto Minho happened on January 31, 1998, after being rescued from a scrap. Over several months it was recovered in the ENVC – where it had been built half a century before – and in the summer of that year it opened doors as a museum ship, managed by the foundation, of municipal initiative.
Visits to the ship consist of passing through the command bridge, kitchens, bakery or engine room, but also through the doctor’s office, treatment room, radiology offices and operating theater.
On board there is also a simulator that allows you to navigate, virtually, the exit of Viana do Castelo bar.
“One million” visitor. Photo: Disclosure / CM Viana do Castelo
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In November 2014, the Sea Center opened on board the ship, which represented an investment of 550 thousand euros financed by the Northern Regional Operational Program (ON2) 2007-2013, within the scope of the National Strategic Reference Framework (QREN).
The new space has, among other features, multimedia equipment, support areas for entrepreneurship and nautical economics and allows interactive audiovisual experiences.
The ship is also equipped with a museological and interpretive route on the maritime culture of Viana do Castelo and a Maritime Documentation Center.
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