Four magnificent tall ships will come to Hamburg for the 830th Hamburg Port Anniversary from 10 to 12 May – Alexander von Humboldt II, Kruzenshtern, Sedov and Mir.
The Queens of the oceans will participate in the grand arrival and departure parades in the heart of the city, on the Friday and Sunday respectively, and invite visitors to look around on board, said a press release from Germany's largest port.
Alongside these amazing tall ships, the Hamburg Port Anniversary will be a meeting place for some 300 vessels of all kinds, including many classic sailing vessels that will also be open to visitors.
The Alexander von Humboldt II is currently Germany’s largest operational sail training ship, with length overall 66 metres. She is a three-masted barque, launched in Bremen in 2011 as the successor to Alexander von Humboldt, and belongs to the non-profit foundation Deutsche Stiftung Sail Training.
She has a regular crew of 25, and provides places for up to 55 trainees, who pay for the trip and to learn the fundamental skills of sailing. All of them, from trainees to helmsman, will be under the command of Maren Reif, Germany’s first female captain of a tall ship.
Maren Reif was a trainee on the Alexander von Humboldt for the first time in 2003. That was a life-changing experience for her – “the trip from Travemünde through the Bay of Biscay to Lisbon was so exciting that I then decided to give up my job as a communication designer and took up nautical studies,” she explains. After completing her studies, Maren Reif joined a Hamburg shipping company, obtained her sea captain’s licence, and works as a maritime inspector today.
Alongside Alexander von Humboldt II, three Russian tall ships will be present at the Hamburg Port Anniversary. Kruzenshtern is the last of the Flying-P liners of the Hamburg company F. Laeisz still in operation. She is regarded as the world’s most beautiful tall ship, with her characteristic black-and-white hull markings. This four-masted barque was launched in Bremerhaven in 1926 as Padua, and carried cargoes to South America and Australia. After the Second World War, she was surrendered to the USSR as war reparation, and renamed Kruzenshtern. Today the 114-metre traditional sailing ship is used by the Russian Ministry of Fisheries to train crews for the fishing fleet.
With length overall 117 metres, Sedov is the world’s longest traditional sailing ship still in operation. This four-masted barque was launched at the Krupp-Germania shipyard in Kiel in 1921, under the name Magdalene Vinnen II. At the end of 1945 she was likewise surrendered to the USSR as reparation, and has been in service with the Soviet and subsequently the Russian Navy as a sail training ship for cadets. Since 2017 she has been owned by the Kaliningrad State Technical University. In 2005 Sedov was used for a major TV drama “The Loss of the Pamir”. Her white bow was painted black specially for the film.
Mir earned her reputation as the world’s fastest tall ship in numerous tall ship races, particularly in the 1990s. The 108-metre three-masted, full-rigged ship was built at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk in 1987. She is owned by the Admiral Makarow State Maritime Academy in Saint Petersburg, which operates Mir as its main sail training vessel for the Russian merchant navy. Mir has for many years been a regular guest at the world’s greatest port festival.
The Hamburg Port Anniversary would like to thank all its sponsors, especially its longstanding principal sponsor AIDA Cruises. Thanks to their support, the world’s greatest port festival thrills more than a million visitors from all parts of the world every year.
