Gorch Fock (1933)
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (June 2008) |
Gorch Fock in Stralsund, 2019
| |
History | |
---|---|
Germany | |
Name | Gorch Fock |
Namesake | Gorch Fock |
Builder | Blohm & Voss, Hamburg |
Laid down | 2 December 1932 |
Launched | 3 May 1933 |
Commissioned | 26 June 1933 |
Fate | Scuttled, 1 May 1945 |
Soviet Union | |
Name | Tovarishch |
Acquired | by salvage, 1947 |
In service | 1951 |
Out of service | 1993 |
Fate | Passed to Ukraine, 1993 |
Ukraine | |
Name | Tovarysh |
Owner | Ministry of Education (Ukraine) |
Acquired | 1993 |
Fate | Sold to Germany in 2003 |
Germany | |
Name | Gorch Fock |
Acquired | 2003 |
Status | Museum ship |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | none |
Type | Barque |
Displacement | 1,510 long tons (1,534 t) full load |
Length | 82.1 m (269 ft) |
Beam | 12 m (39 ft) |
Height | 41.3 m (135 ft) at main mast |
Draught | 5.2 m (17 ft) |
Propulsion | 550 hp (410 kW) auxiliary engine |
Sail plan | Barque, 1,753 m2 (18,870 sq ft) sail area |
Gorch Fock I (ex Tovarishch, ex Gorch Fock) is a German three-mast
She was taken as war reparations by the Soviet Union after World War II and renamed Tovarishch. The ship was acquired by sponsors, after a short period under the Ukrainian flag in the 1990s and a prolonged stay in British ports due to lack of funds for necessary repairs.
Then she sailed to her original home port of Stralsund where her original name of Gorch Fock was restored on 29 November 2003. She is a museum ship, and extensive repairs were carried out in 2008.
The Federal German government built a replacement training ship Gorch Fock (1958) which is still in service.
History and details
The German school ship Niobe, a three-masted barque, capsized on 26 July 1932 in the Baltic Sea near Fehmarn due to a sudden squall, killing 69. The loss prompted the German Navy to order a new training vessel built. Flags were lowered to half-mast from Flensburg to Konstanz as a public outpouring of grief gripped the nation. The Prussian State Mint issued a Niobe memorial coin to help raise money for a replacement ship, and soon earned 200,000 Reichsmarks towards the effort.[1]
A
On 3 May 1933 the ship was launched and named Gorch Fock in honor of German writer
Commissioned by the German Navy on 26 June 1933, Gorch Fock is a three-masted barque. She has square sails on the fore and main masts, and is
The training ship was designed to be robust and safe against capsizing. More than 300 tons of steel ballast in the keel give her a righting moment large enough to bring her back in the upright position even when she heels over to nearly a 90°.
Gorch Fock served as a training vessel for the German Reichsmarine prior to World War II.[3] During the war, she was a stationary office ship in Stralsund, until she was officially reactivated on 19 April 1944. On 1 May 1945, the crew scuttled her in shallow waters off Rügen in an attempt to avoid her capture by the Soviets, who already had fired at her for 45 minutes with tanks.
The Soviets ordered Stralsund-based company "B. Staude Schiffsbergung" to raise and salvage her, which after some difficulties was done in 1947 at a cost of 800,000 Reichsmark (equivalent to 3 million 2021 euros). She was under restoration between 1948 and 1950. She was then named Tovarishch (Russian for "Comrade"
After the
As of 2011 the ship is in poor but stable condition. There is about six million dollars worth of restoration work required to bring this ship back to sailing condition. The museum had a dismal tourist season, resulting in a fifty thousand dollar loss in revenue from previous years. This has forced a layoff of five workers.[needs update]
-
Showing Stralsund flag, and with name "товарищ" painted over
-
Gorch Fock, painting of her early days at sea by the Swedish artist Gunnar Larsson (1907–1982).
-
Gorch Fock in the 1930s
-
Niobe, 1930
Sister ships
The design of Gorch Fock proved highly successful. She was the first of a series of five sister ships built by
USCGC Eagle (ex Horst Wessel)
Sagres (ex Albert Leo Schlageter)
Albert Leo Schlageter was launched on 30 October 1937. She was confiscated by the United States after World War II and then sold to Brazil, where she sailed as a school ship under the name Guanabara. In 1961, the Portuguese Navy bought her to replace the previous school ship Sagres (which was later transferred to Hamburg, where she is a museum ship under her original name Rickmer Rickmers). The Portuguese named her Sagres also. She still sails as of 2015, having completed a circumnavigation on 24 December 2010.
Mircea
Mircea was built by Blohm & Voss for the Romanian Navy. She was launched in 1938 and has always sailed under the Romanian flag (except for a short period after World War II, when she was confiscated by the Soviet Union). She is the only one of the sister ships that is truly identical to Gorch Fock. She was overhauled at the Blohm & Voss shipyards in Hamburg in 1966, and she still sails today[update].
Herbert Norkus
Named after the Hitler Youth martyr Herbert Norkus, another ship of the Gorch Fock design—with the same dimensions as Horst Wessel—was begun at the Blohm & Voss shipyard. However, the unfinished ship had to be launched prematurely on 7 November 1939 because the slipway had to be cleared to build submarines. The hull stayed in the harbor of Hamburg throughout World War II. It was damaged in a bomb raid in 1945, and instead of being sold to Brazil as had been considered, ended up being filled with gas grenades and sunk in the Skagerrak in 1947.
The yards, which had been prepared, but not yet mounted, and the tackle, which had not yet been rigged, were later used for Gorch Fock built in 1958.
Gorch Fock
As Germany had lost all of its training vessels as
The modern-day Gorch Fock was launched on 23 August 1958 and commissioned on 17 December of that year.
Latin American ships
A number of similar ships have been built by the Astilleros Celaya S.A. shipyard in Bilbao for Latin American Navies, possibly following the Blohm & Voss design[citation needed]. The hulls and rigging of these ships are very similar, the main differences are in the superstructure and they also have larger tanks for both diesel and water, and they are also longer[citation needed]. These ships are Gloria (1967, Colombia), Guayas (1976, Ecuador), Simón Bolívar (1979, Venezuela), and Cuauhtémoc (1982, Mexico).
References
- ^ ISBN 0904-609-146.
- ^ Lingenauber, Klaus. "GORCH FOCK I in Stralsund". Arbeitskreis historischer Schiffbau e.V. Retrieved 5 July 2022.
- ISBN 9789769534001.
- ^ See Wiktionary entry for товарищ
External links
- The correct homepage of "Gorch Fock 1" Google translation
- ESYS page on the whole family of ships (in German).
- ESYS page with links to the five original ships (in German).
- JanMaat Archived 2010-07-22 at the Wayback Machine—another German site on the Gorch Fock (ex Tovarishch).