Atlantis

Built in 1905 at the Wichhorst yard in Hamburg as Bürgermeister Bartels. She served as a lightship for more than seventy years — latterly at the Elbe II station — and afterwards for some years as a fire brigade training hulk.

In 1984–85, on the initiative of Captain H. Paschburg, the Scheel und Jöhnk yards in Hamburg and Szczecin converted her into a barquentine for passenger cruising and renamed her Atlantis. Her first sea trials were under the Fijian flag with registration in Suva — she was to work the Pacific, but in the end cruised European coasts under the flag of Panama. Her rig was reduced in 1986 for stability.

She has sailed European waters since 1988 and was briefly registered in Malta in 1989. Dutch owners took her over in 1997, thoroughly overhauled her including the deck and the underwater hull, and registered her in Hoorn. Since then she has spent summers in the Baltic and the colder months in the eastern and western Mediterranean.

As a charter ship she offers seventeen twin cabins with shower, satellite phone, television and video. Germanischer Lloyd has awarded her the highest safety class for passenger cruising, and she appears regularly at sailing gatherings in Bremerhaven, Kiel and Rostock.

In April 2005 she was sold at public auction to a subsidiary of a mortgage bank and then bought by the Bruinsma brothers, who refitted her and returned her to charter work under the Dutch flag.