"Gorch Fock" back from the 175th training voyage

On Friday, 7 July 2023 at 10 a.m., the sail training ship "Gorch Fock" is expected back at the Kiel-Wik naval base. This marks the end of the 175th training voyage abroad, which took the ship and crew back to Kiel via Spain (La Coruna and Cadiz), Portugal (Funchal on Madeira, Ponta Delgada on the Azores) and Ireland (Dublin).

The German Navy is celebrating its 175th anniversary this year. The German Navy's sail training ship was not in its home port of Kiel for the German Navy's birthday on 14 June and also missed Kiel Week. Now, however, the three-masted barque is returning after around four months and 7,000 nautical miles. 250 officer candidates from Crew 2022 were given their first experience on board the tall ship as part of their basic maritime training. Among them were cadets from Colombia, France, Togo, Cameroon and Senegal. On board the sail training ship, the course participants learnt the basic seamanship skills.

Since its commissioning in December 1958, around 15,000 officer and non-commissioned officer candidates have been trained on the "Gorch Fock". In the course of her training voyages, she has visited over 390 harbours in almost 60 countries on all continents, covering more than 750,000 nautical miles, the equivalent of 35 circumnavigations of the globe.