(c) by Rickmer Rickmers. All rights reserved.
Description [EN]
As a permanent monument in the Port of Hamburg, Rickmer Rickmers lies at the St. Pauli-Landungsbrücken and presents itself to visitors as a three-masted, steel cargo sailing ship serving as a museum ship.
The ship was launched in August 1896 at a shipyard in Bremerhaven as a full-rigged ship. Her maiden voyage was to Hong Kong, where rice and bamboo were loaded; the crew initially numbered 21. In the following years the ship completed twelve circumnavigations, primarily via the United States or to the Far East. In 1904 the Rickmer Rickmers lost the Kreuzmast in a hurricane in the Indian Ocean, but still reached a port in South Africa and was subsequently re-rigged as a barque for economic reasons. In 1912 the ship changed owners and thereafter carried, among other cargoes, coal from Wales to Chile and saltpeter from Chile to Europe. At the outbreak of the First World War it was anchored off the Azores in 1914 and was seized by Portuguese authorities in 1916; under a new name it then transported war supplies for the Allied side.
After a refit the ship served from 1924 as the sail training ship Sagres with the Portuguese Navy and in 1930 received two auxiliary diesel engines. In 1958 it successfully took part in the Tall Ships’ Races. Its time as a training ship ended in 1962; subsequently it lay in Lisbon as a depot ship under another name.
The revival as a museum began with the founding of the association Windjammer für Hamburg and led in 1983 to the acquisition of the three-masted vessel, which was in poor condition. After several years of restoration, which was supported among other things by labour-market policy measures, the ship returned to Hamburg under her original name and has since been berthed at the Landungsbrücken. The restored mast height is 54 metres; visitors can climb the standing rigging up to about 30 metres. After a general overhaul in 2016 the ship was inspected again in 2024; nearly 30 spots of pitting corrosion were found in the underwater hull. On 12 August 2024 Rickmer Rickmers resumed her traditional berth.
Die Stiftung Rickmer Rickmers awards the distinction „Ehrenkapitän“ for special merits; to date 19 persons or organisations have been honoured with it.