The plan was in place, but the weather didn't play ball. First the wind was too strong, then the water level around the Rügen Bridge was too high. Finally, on 6 June, it worked out and two tugs manoeuvred the "Gorch Fock I" from Stralsund harbour to the site of the nearby Volkswerft shipyard.
What awaits the 90-year-old lady in the new Maritime Industrial and Commercial Park is a generous makeover. For more than ten million euros, the Stralsund subsidiary of Norwegian shipbuilder Fosen Yard is overhauling the rigging and ensuring that the 82-metre-long barque will be afloat again for the next 25 years. The last certificate expired in 2020. The work is scheduled to last until the end of this year.
Subsidies only flow when the "Gorch Fock I" is purchased
The campaign was made possible by a deal: in February, the Stralsund town council decided that the Hanseatic city would buy the former sailing training ship and restore it - this takeover was the prerequisite for the federal government to provide funds from the "KulturInvest" funding programme for the preservation or basic restoration of the three-master.
Of the currently planned 10.5 million euros in repair costs, 9.5 million euros will come from the EU, the federal government and the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Added to this is the municipality's own contribution, paid for by Tall-Ship Friends e. V., which operates the "Gorch Fock I" as a museum ship.
The history of the "Gorch Fock I"
The barque is often confused with the "Gorch Fock", the current training ship of the German Navy with its home port in Kiel, built in 1958. The story of the number 1 begins in December 1932, when the Reichsmarine commissioned the Blohm + Voss shipyard in Hamburg with the project.
After a record-breaking construction time of just 100 days, the "Gorch Fock" was launched on 3 May 1933, entered service on 27 June and operated as a training ship until 1939, with space for almost 200 sea cadets. During the Second World War, she was used as a residential ship, in Swinemünde, Kiel and from 1944 in Stralsund.
Sunk according to plan
On 27 April 1945, the "Gorch Fock" is derigged and decommissioned. Three days later, after being fired upon by the Soviet army, the crew scuttled the ship in the Strelasund to save it from capture by the Red Army. Two years later, the Soviets raised the barque, brought it to Stralsund and overhauled it in Rostock and Wismar until 1950.
She then sails as a training ship under the name "Towarischtsch", comes under the Ukrainian flag in 1991 and lands in Wilhelmshaven in 1999 with the help of Tall-Ship Friends. There, the "Gorch Fock I" becomes the flagship of the "Expo am Meer" in 2000.
Back to the old home
In 2003, the Tall-Ship Friends bought the three-master from the Ukraine and brought it back to Stralsund, where the former Volkswerft shipyard refurbished the ship. After her christening, she officially regains her name and a museum is created on board with the help of the "Gorch Fock Friends" association.
Since 2016, the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has listed the barque as a monument, it is rented out for events and provides a romantic backdrop for weddings. In the long term, the approximately 1,300 Tall Ship Friends would like to not only make the three-master accessible, but also set sail again. The non-profit organisation "for the preservation of the traditional windjammer and cultivation of seafaring culture" also offers guest cruises, for example on the "Alexander von Humboldt II".
