Gorch Fock (1933) - History and Details

History and Details

The German school ship Segelschulschiff Niobe, a four-masted barque, capsized on July 26, 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. The contract went to the shipyard of Blohm & Voss in Hamburg, where construction began on December 2, 1932. She was completed in only 100 days. On May 3, 1933 the ship was launched and baptized Gorch Fock in honor of German writer Johann Kinau who wrote under the pseudonym "Gorch Fock". Kinau had died in the 1916 Battle of Jutland aboard the cruiser SMS Wiesbaden.

Commissioned by the German Navy on June 26, 1933, the "Gorch Fock" is a three masted barque. She has square sails on the fore and main masts, and is gaff rigged on the mizzen. The hull steel and has a sparred length of 82.1 m (269 ft), a width of 12 m (39 ft) and a draught of 5.2 m (17 ft). She has a displacement at full load of 1510 tons. Her main mast stands 41.30 m (135 ft) high above deck and she carries 23 sails totalling 1,753 m2 (18,869 sq ft). She is equipped with an auxiliary engine of 410 kW (550 hp).

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°.

The Gorch Fock served as a training vessel for the German Reichsmarine prior to World War II. During the war, she was a stationary office ship in Stralsund, until she was officially reactivated on April 19, 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. She was under restoration between 1948 and 1950. She was then named Tovarishch ("Comrade" in Russian) in 1951 and put into service as a training vessel. Her new home port was Odessa. She participated in many Tall Ships' Races and cruised far and wide on the seven seas. She made a voyage around the world in 1957 and won the Operation Sail race twice, in 1974 and 1976.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Tovarishch sailed under the Ukrainian flag (home port Kherson) until 1993, when she was needed repairs and deactivated for lack of funds. In 1995, she sailed from Kherson to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where private sponsors wanted to have her repaired. This failed because of the high costs, and in 1999, the ship was transported to Wilhelmshaven, where she stayed in dock for four years until finally transferred to Stralsund in 2003. On November 29, 2003 the ship was re-christened Gorch Fock.

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.