Morjana, a remarkable yacht, for the last several years has been undergoing meticulous restoration led by a team of Kurzeme's Cadet Club (KCC) working in a hangar located in the South End of Andrejsala. It was finally launched on June 19, 2009. Click here to view our collection of photographs from the actual launch! 

The reconstruction process proved to be a regionally unique experiment making Morjana currently the only schooner made here in the Baltic states. She has two masts and measures 27 metres long by 5.4 metres wide (89 by 18 feet).

It took the members of the Kurzeme's Cadet Club training base of sailing sports and a number of enthusiasts 

almost four years to fully restore and remodel the yacht. Morjana was initially built 30 years earlier, but now her looks are completely different with four individual cabins plus one bigger shared cabin. There are 12 berths and a well-equipped grill area. Morjana can take onboard up to 30 people.

Mr Gunārs Pakalnietis, a commodore representing the KCC, said that the yacht would be used for the exercise needs of the sailing club's trainees, with Morjana's first sails taking them across the Baltic Sea to Denmark and Sweden. As the yacht's length-to-width ratio is 5 to 1, Pakalnietis predicted that the vessel's maximum sailing speed would indeed be high. In the commodore's words, the exciting yacht's characteristics could be compared to those of a sharp knife.

Moriana happens to be a female given name found in Spain. The Latvians who reconstructed the yacht first heard it while visiting a Spanish port where there's a statue, and a romantic legend, of a girl waiting for her boyfriend returning from the sea.