Ketch · Germany
Albatros
A gaff ketch of 1913. After a long career as a freighter, restored to her original dimensions.
Technical data
- Rig
- Ketch
- Flag
- Germany
- Home port
- Hamburg
- Built
- 1913
- Shipyard
- Van Diepen, Waterhuizen, NL
- Hull material
- Steel
- Length
- 28.3 m
- Beam
- 5.05 m
- Sail area
- 250 m²
- Sailing area
- Greifswald
Built in 1913 at the Van Diepen brothers' yard in Waterhuizen and registered as Erna at Nieder Ochtenhausen.
From 1922 to 1970 she worked out of Hamburg as a motor sailing freighter, first with a 36 hp two-cylinder HMG hot-bulb engine and, from 1938, a more powerful four-cylinder Schlüter diesel. She was lengthened several times in the 1950s and 1960s to increase her cargo capacity — her hull eventually reached 42 metres — and worked the inland waterways. From 1970 to 1975 she was registered in Hamburg as Möwe, then decommissioned.
In 1979 she was taken back to her original yard dimensions using old documents, rigged as a gaff ketch and renamed Albatros, registered in Hamburg.
Since 1999 a maritime circle of friends has kept her as a traditional ship in the museum harbour at Greifswald.