The small Norwegian passenger ship Gann made her first visit to Wearside after an unscheduled diversion. Used as a winter training school for sea cadets, she was carrying 184 crew and student mariners when plans to dock at another North-East port had to be changed at short notice.
So instead the vessel sailed into the Port of Sunderland and berthed at the Corporation Quay on 5 April. The 6,257gt vessel had travelled for 36 hours to get to Sunderland and stayed a day before leaving for Aberdeen. As Sunderland is not currently a passenger-handling port, special security measures had to be implemented and approved by the Maritime Transport Security Division of the Department for Transport.
Gann was built in 1982 as the Hurtigruten ship Narvik and was in service along the Norwegian coast until 2007, when she was taken over by the Sea Cadets and renamed Gann. She measures 108.6m by 16.5m.
