Swedish 18th century replica ship returns from China
Afp, Stockholm
A replica of the Swedish East India Company's 18th century merchant vessel, the Goethenborg, returned home to Sweden on Saturday amid festive celebrations after a two-year voyage to China. Thousands of leisure boats crowded the outskirts of the harbour in the southwestern city of Gothenburg as tens of thousands of onlookers massed on the docks to watch the Gothenburg sail in to port after retracing the original ship's route to and from Shanghai, images broadcast live on television showed. The ship fired a 21-gun royal salute under a blazing sun as it entered the port. Chinese President Hu Jintao, who was in Sweden for a state visit, boarded the vessel along with Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia after it docked, to the strains of traditional Chinese folk music. The original ship, the East Indiaman Goetheborg, was returning from its third two-year voyage to China in 1745 with a full cargo when it ran into a rock at the entrance to the Gothenburg port.
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