No. 5 Elbe

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Pilot Protector No. 5 Elbe under sails

The No. 5 Elbe (formerly Wander Bird ) is a pilot schooner and one of the few surviving sailing ships from the era of wooden shipbuilding in Hamburg . She sank in June 2019 after a collision with the container ship Astrosprinter on the Elbe near Stadersand .

history

The two-master was built by HC Stülcken Sohn in Hamburg and was launched in 1883. For 30 years, the gaff schooner was used to carry pilots in the Elbe estuary and the German Bight . The schooner is 37 meters long, six meters wide and has a sail area of ​​360 square meters.

In 1924 the ship went into private ownership and was renamed Wander Bird . As a private yacht, it crossed the Atlantic 13 times. Warwick M. Tompkins circled the ship in 1937 Cape Horn : With its six and four year old children Ann and Warwick and five other crew members the family Tompkins lingered because of a storm 28 days in the Cape Horn region before the 50th  latitude reached and the southeast trade to San Francisco arrived. Tompkins documented the trip in a 27-minute film, the German Maritime Museum has made an extract available. Further Pacific crossings followed.

In 2002 the Hamburg Maritime Foundation acquired the ship in Seattle and brought it back to the Hanseatic city. It was completely renovated, the non-profit association Jugend in Arbeit Hamburg e. V. invested well over 1,000 working hours. In the winter of 2005/2006, the entire propulsion system, large parts of the stern and the Vorsteven were renewed. Afterwards the ship sailed again under its old name Elbe . The sails “ELBE” and “5” refer to the area of ​​operation and the consecutive number 5 of a total of eleven pilot protectors. Most recently, day trips on the Elbe or multi-day trips on the North and Baltic Seas could be undertaken on the schooner. The ship belongs to the Hamburg Maritime Foundation and is sponsored by the Friends of the Pilot Schooner No. 5 Elbe e. V. "operated.

After eight months of restoration work in Hvide Sande , Denmark , where the No. 5 Elbe received, among other things, new outer planks and a new stern post for 1.5 million euros , the pilot schooner returned to Hamburg on May 29, 2019.

2019 average due to collision

The feeder ship Astrosprinter , with which the No. 5 Elbe collided on June 8, 2019
Salvage No. 5 Elbe with lifting bags
Parts of the rigging are removed with a floating crane

On June 8, 2019, the No. 5 same around 14:30 GMT on the same level with Stadersand with the 141-meter feeder vessel Astro Sprinter and decreased due to the intruding water during Notschleppung in the mouth region of the rocker . The 43 people on board were rescued. Several people, including two children, were injured in the collision. The skipper of the museum ship was an 82-year-old retired Elbe pilot. On the bridge of the feeder vessel is also a pilot should have been, according to information provided by the NDR. According to NDR, the sailing ship had already been noticed before the collision due to its dangerous driving style and was therefore also radioed, but the crew did not react, although the radio on board was functional.

A video has been uploaded to the Internet that was recorded on board the pilot schooner immediately before the collision. This video shows that the pilot schooner was on the wrong side of the fairway and on a collision course with the larger ship. When the command “hard to port” was given late, and if it had been followed correctly, it would still have been possible to evade, several people on board reacted incorrectly and steered the ship in the wrong direction and thus directly in front of the container ship. In an interview on June 11, 2019, Joachim Kaiser from the Hamburg maritime foundation speculated that the ship had crossed the fairway, turning around and sailing back halfway through the time allotted for the guest voyage, and was therefore on the wrong side of the fairway. However, this does not yet explain why the ship remained on this side for so long, why there was no response to the radio messages and why at the crucial moment the ship was steered to starboard against the command. For the people on board, the collision was still relatively mild, as the pilot protector was not pushed under the container ship, but only to the side after it hit the bulbous bow , and the rescue workers were already nearby due to a previous deployment. According to the head of operations, the traditional ship sank within ten to twelve minutes. Ship diesel leaked in large quantities from the damaged vehicle.

The recovery was carried out by a Spanish company. From June 16, lifting bags were attached under the hull by divers. On the night of June 17, the ship floated up again and was moored to a port sheet pile wall in the Schwing estuary. The repair contract was awarded to Peters Werft . After the damage assessment and the approval of the Hamburg Waterways and Shipping Office for the transport on the tug hook, the transfer to Wewelsfleth by tug was carried out on June 21, 2019.

Technical specifications

  • Rigging : schooner
  • Year of construction: 1883
  • Home port: Hamburg
  • Shipyard: HC Stülcken Sohn, Hamburg - Steinwerder
  • Length: 25.32 m
  • Total length: 37 m
  • Width: 5.95 m
  • Draft : 3.66 m
  • Sail area : 360 m²
  • Hull: oak
  • Rudder system: tiller
  • Old engine: General Motors 471 Diesel (158 HP)
  • New engine: 2 × Volvo-Penta DS130 with 130 HP each

literature

  • Warwick M. Tompkins: Fifty South to Fifty South. The Story of the Voyage West around Cape Hoorn in the Schooner Wander Bird , Ox Bow Press, Woodbridge, Connecticut 1938; Reprinted by the same publisher in 2000 ISBN 1-881987-16-7 LCC No. 00-103 234
  • Warwick M. Tompkins: Two Sailors and Their Voyage Around Cape Hoorn , 1939 LCC No. G463.T63; German: Two children sail around Cape Horn , translated by Annemarie Menzner von Weiss, 1950

Sources and web links

Commons : No. 5 Elbe  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pilot schooner "No.5 Elbe" sinks in an accident on the Elbe. Hamburger Abendblatt, June 8, 2019, accessed on June 8, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung from November 7, 2010, page V9: The Cape Horn Family Ark
  3. ↑ https://www.welt.de/print/welt_kompakt/hamburg/article195048815/Drama-um-No-5-Elbe.html
  4. ↑ The "No. 5 Elbe" is back in Hamburg on May 30, 2019
  5. ↑ https://www.tag24.de/nachrichten/nach-havarie-no-5-elbe-kann-historisches-segelschiff-gerettet-haben-verletzt-bergung-stade-hamburg-1092949
  6. ^ Average accident on the Elbe: "No. 5 Elbe" sunk on June 8, 2019
  7. ↑ https://www.mopo.de/im-norden/nach-dem-unglueck-auf-der-elbe-feuerwehr---es-haette-eine-katastrophe-genz-koennen--32676644
  8. ↑ Disaster on the Elbe: Historic sailing ship sinks after colliding with a freighter. In: spiegel.de June 8, 2019, accessed June 9, 2019.
  9. ^ Average of the "No.5 Elbe": Freighter drove correctly , on www.ndr.de.
  10. ↑ world
  11. ↑ "No. 5 Elbe “: Video shows the moment before the collision , on www.ndr.de
  12. ↑ How dangerous was the "No.5 Elbe" accident? , in: Hamburg Journal , June 11, 2019 (online at www.ndr.de )
  13. ^ "No. 5 Elbe" on the surface again , NDR from June 17, 2019
  14. ↑ Hamburg: Historic sailing ship "No. 5 Elbe »towed to the shipyard. In: welt.de. June 21, 2019.
  15. ↑ "No. 5 Elbe" reaches shipyard in Wewelsfleth. In: ndr.de. June 21, 2019.