Tierra del Fuego (ship)
The expedition ship Tierra del Fuego (later Penelope ) is a ketch (two-masted sailing ship) that was built in 1927 at the Krämer, Vagt and Beckmann shipyard in Büsum , Dithmarschen ( Schleswig-Holstein ). The client was the former naval officer and aviator Gunther Plüschow .
.jpg)
properties
The ship was built according to the plans of an ocean- going fishing trawler. Since Plüschow knew the weather conditions of his future travel area from his previous trips, only the best oak wood was used for the frames and planking . Every part is oversized. In this way, multiple security was “built in”. Narrow spacing between the frames (every 55 cm) and 8 cm thick planking on the water pass speak for themselves. In addition, an inner lining and strong stringers provide additional strength. So equipped, Plüschow was able to face the storms and the drifting glacier ice in the fjords of Tierra del Fuego .
history
fire land
In November 1927, Gunther Plüschow started his legendary Tierra del Fuego expedition to the southern tip of South America . With stops in England and Portugal , we went to the Canary Islands and from there on to the Cape Verdean Islands and across the Atlantic to Brazil . There Plüschow stopped in various port cities and visited German emigrants in Bahia , Rio de Janeiro and in the German emigrant colony of Blumenau .
From Brazil he drove on to the Strait of Magellan to Punta Arenas . There Plüschow received a small seaplane , a Heinkel HD 24 W D-1313 with floats, which had previously been shipped with the steamer Planet of the Laeisz shipping company . After the individual components of the aircraft were assembled in a small shipyard on the outskirts of Punta Arenas, he and his fellow aviator and cameraman Ernst Dreblow were the first to fly over the Darwin Cordillera (a southern branch of the Andes ) to Ushuaia . On this flight, he also brought the first airmail to the southernmost city in the world. The recordings made during the flights were the first of their kind and served as the basis for a more detailed exploration of this previously unknown area. The Tierra del Fuego served as the base ship, which enabled the aircraft to walk alongside after landing to refuel the aircraft. Such an undertaking would not have been possible without this support from the sea. As a tender , repair shop, fuel transporter and floating “shelter” against the icy storms in the fjords of Tierra del Fuego, the “wooden cantine”, as Plüschow affectionately called it, contributed to making the expedition a success.
At the beginning of 1929 Plüschow had to end the expedition for lack of money. He sold the ship to an English sheep farmer who owned properties in Argentina , Chile and the Falkland Islands . This was the only way he could pay for the fuel for the last flights, the storage of the aircraft and the return trip to Germany.
Penelope
After the sale of the Tierra del Fuego , Plüschow's helmsman, Paul Christiansen and the machinist Seppl Schmidt stayed on board and drove the ketch, renamed Penelope , for the Hamilton family until the late 1930s. She made several trips between the Chilean mainland and the Falkland Islands . The last voyage to mainland South America took place in June 1938.
After an engine failure, the ship lay up and was put on a beach. It was only in 1946 that the Falkland Islands government bought the Penelope and fitted it with a new machine. The Falkland Island Dependency Survey (FIDS; predecessor organization of today's polar research institute “British Antarctic Survey”) chartered the former Tierra del Fuego to supply the sub-Antarctic research stations in South Georgia and the South Shetland Islands . However, these plans never came to fruition. Undoubtedly, however, the ship could have performed this difficult service because of its construction.
Since the Falkland Islands did not have a road network at that time, the government used the ship to supply the farms on the individual islands of the archipelago . When the first radio communications network was set up in the Falkland Islands, it was the Penelope that brought radio masts and equipment to each island. She later brought building materials to Fox Bay for a slaughterhouse and cold store . In this way, the ship made an important contribution to the expansion of the infrastructure on the Falkland Islands.
After another change of ownership, the Falkland Island Company (FIC; Falkland Trading Company) finally bought the ship in 1968. The Penelope used this mainly for transporting sheep and wool between the individual islands and their capital Port Stanley . When the Great Britain , which was discovered and salvaged as a coal hulk in Sparrow Cove off Stanley, was bought in the late 1960s to be restored as a museum ship in Bristol , the Penelope rendered many valuable services in the preparatory work. After a major overhaul in 1976, her old deckhouse and companionway were replaced with larger, more functional superstructures.
When the Argentine military occupied the Falkland Islands in 1982, a group of school children were evacuated from Stanley and carried across the Falkland Sound by ship. From there, the students went to their families on the western island, which was largely spared from fighting. Shortly afterwards, the Argentine Navy commandeered the ship. With a new black camouflage, the Penelope now served as a liaison ship for troop and fuel transports around Fox Bay. On one of these missions the ship came under artillery fire from a British frigate , and another time a British Harrier jet fired on her from the air . None of the Argentine Navy personnel was seriously injured in these attacks.
After the end of the Falklands conflict, the Penelope was returned to the FIC, for which she served until 1989.
The Furgerson family took over the ship and used it in a manner similar to that of the FIC for transporting cattle. Only with the acquisition of the ship by Michael Clarke, the last owner of the Penelope on the Falkland Islands, was the "old lady" allowed to do a less "strenuous" job. Stationed on Westpoint Island , the ketch brought ornithologists and scientists to the islands to the west, which with their unique bird colonies are one of the most biodiverse animal paradises on earth.
Homecoming
During his work as a navigation officer on a small expedition cruise ship, the captain Bernd Buchner discovered the former expedition ship Tierra del Fuego on the Falkland Islands in 2001 .
After purchasing the Penelope , "Master Mariner" Buchner put the ketch, which has now been renamed Tierra del Fuego , "through its paces". After lipping it up, it quickly became clear that the entire oak planking of the underwater hull was in astonishingly good condition. Only a few plank joints had to be caulked.
After further work on the ship, Captain Buchner decided to bring the ship home to its place of birth in Büsum on his own. Five volunteers were found, which Captain Buchner took on board. He dared to start the voyage in April 2006. On board and integrated into the crew was a two-person camera team that was supposed to document the voyage. Regardless of the bad weather, the oak hull withstood the South Atlantic lakes in winds of up to 7 Beaufort. The deck, made only of Oregon pitch pine and meanwhile decrepit, could not withstand the passing lakes and the rains, so that it began to leak to an unacceptable extent.
In order not to expose the ship and the crew to any further danger, it was decided to ship the ship to Germany on a container ship belonging to the Hamburg Süd shipping company . At the end of June, the Tierra del Fuego in the south port of Buenos Aires was taken on board the 5,552 TEU container ship Monte Cervantes and brought to Hamburg under the command of Captain Birger Möller .
On August 11, 2006, the Tierra del Fuego docked again in the home port of Büsum after almost 79 years. Further planning provided for recognition as a state cultural monument and, with the help of the “Förderkreis Kulturdenkmal Expedition Ship Tierra del Fuego”, to dismantle and restore the ship to its original condition from 1927.
On December 20, 2006, the expedition ship Tierra del Fuego was entered in the monument book for cultural monuments from historical times and is therefore under monument protection. On January 10, 2007, the slipping took place in the port of Büsum. The ship could be viewed as an attraction as part of the Büsum Museum Harbor . In addition, however, it should be kept ready to drive and take part in special maritime events such as Kieler Woche , Rumregatta , Hanse Sail Rostock , Hamburg Harbor Birthday or Sail Bremerhaven .
renovation
From October 5, 2007, the Tierra del Fuego was in the shipyard of the Jugend in Arbeit e. V. in Hamburg-Harburg . There it should be dismantled and restored as true to the original as possible. At the beginning of May 2018, restoration work began in the Museumswerft Flensburg after it had been transported overland from Hamburg to Flensburg. During the work in the museum shipyard, it became clear that the ship is in such poor condition that it has to be rebuilt from scratch.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Historic ship arrives in Flensburg. In: NDR.de . NDR , May 8, 2018, accessed May 9, 2018 .