N ° 5 Elbe
Despite the bad weather, an impressive parade of 28 traditional ships formed on the Elbe last weekend, escorting the old pilot schooner on his lap of honor. The trip, applauded by numerous spectators, went from the Elbphilharmonie to Blankenese and back, but it was also a welcome occasion to celebrate the Hanseatic shipping tradition and its preservation. In the wake of "N ° 5 Elbe", which was already in service as a pilot transfer ship at the mouth of the Elbe during the emperor's time, ships from the Hamburg Maritime Foundation and the Övelgönne museum port followed, as well as privately owned ones.
Joachim Kaiser (r.), Chairman of the Hamburg Maritime Foundation, with Ms. Christiane
"10, 50, 100, I sometimes lose track of all the anniversaries," joked Joachim Kaiser, chairman of the Hamburg Maritime Foundation, at his instigation "N ° 5 Elbe" after an absence of three quarters of a century and an eventful existence in the US2002 has been brought back to its home port.
Flat in front of the sheet, other participants followed "N ° 5 Elbe" upstream
After its decommissioning in the 1920s, the ship was bought by the American Warwick Tompkins and restored as a private yacht. In 1936, Tompkins sailed the ship, which he named the Wander Bird, from Gloucester with his wife and two children Ann and Warwick Jr., a cook, mate, and small crew who paid for the ride in the US state of Massachusetts viKap Hoorn to San Francisco, where the boat stayed until 1999. This adventurous journey was immortalized with the film and book "Fifty South to Fifty South" by Tompkins himself.
"Wander Bird" was later bought by a German-born tug captain named Harold Sommer in San Francisco and thus saved from being scrapped. Together with friends, Sommer restored the schooner thoroughly and sacrificially over many years, staging the largest private yacht restoration in the USA at the time Due to private circumstances, the summer of 1999 was forced to sell the schooner to two art dealers in Seattle, who also took it there before they sold it to the Hamburg Maritime Foundation in 2002.
The ship was dismantled under the Kaiser's direction and under adventurous circumstances and carried to Hamburg as a deck load. There it was extensively restored by the Hamburg Maritime Foundation with the help of sponsors, the youth in work association and volunteers, and it was put back into service in 2004. Today the boat is operated and maintained by around 240 volunteers who are part of an association. "N ° 5 Elbe" sails between 100 and 120 days a year, with charter guests on the Elbe, but also in regattas in the Baltic Sea or on trips with club members. She covers 3000 miles with pleasure.
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