Transfer from Vegesack to Wilhelmshaven in the evening hours. The reason is a defective valve.
The Gorch Fock after undocking. Photo: German Navy
The Lürssen shipyard proudly announced at the weekend - and rightly so - that the Gorch Fock is back in service today. Under the leadership of the project team led by Sascha Eilers, more than 150 shipyard employees have been working flat out to ensure that the training sailing ship GORCH FOCK has been brought back into shape. Today, the Gorch Fock set sail for Wilhelmshaven and headed down the Weser towards Helgoland. Lürssen took over responsibility for the restoration of this ship in October 2019 and initially moved the barque to Berne. In the spring of this year, the ship was successfully launched and towed to Lemwerder for further outfitting with the help of tugs.
In addition to the final outfitting, further internal trials and acceptance tests will then be carried out in Wilhelmshaven until the handover at the end of September. The final outfitting of the GORCH FOCK will be completed in Wilhelmshaven. At the same time, the German Navy will bring its equipment on board. The handover to the navy is scheduled for 30 September.
Soon it will be time again: Enter auf! Photo: MSM
Tim Wagner, Managing Director of Fr. Lürssen Werft, was particularly pleased "to be able to complete this project in just a few weeks and hand over a completely overhauled GORCH FOCK to the German Navy very soon". And he had exciting months behind him, because the difficult circumstances caused by incomplete construction documents and numerous shipbuilding works were exacerbated by Corona-related staff shortages and delivery delays.
Captain Nils Brandt has been in command since 2014. In this unusually long time, he has been through all the depths and is correspondingly calm in his statement: "We are looking forward to the first sea voyage as part of the shipyard test voyage and the first real impressions on the 'new' ship." And the experienced seaman was proved right, as the crossing was accompanied by a number of disruptions. As reported by NDR, assistance from tugs was required first on the Weser and then in the German Bight.
The only problem is a defective engine cooling valve, which cannot be replaced while the ship is underway. For this reason, the Gorch Fock will arrive in Wilhelmshaven this evening. The valve will then be replaced there. Shipyard test runs like today's serve to test the technology and the necessary interaction of individual on-board components under real conditions, to localise the causes of faults and to rectify them afterwards. Before this leads to unobjective comments again: Experts know that this is normal and also good after such a long period of standing. Anything that is noticeable now will do no harm when the training operation begins.
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