Pilot Schooner No. 5 Elbe Struck by Container Ship (June 9th, 2019)

Hamburg’s oldest and last remaining seagoing ship from the wooden shipbuilding era sinks in collision with a container ship, 28 guests and 15 crew members were rescued. Eight injured had to be treated by a doctor, including two seriously injured adults and two slightly injured children.

1883 pilot schooner No. 5 ELBE ex-WANDER BIRD (€1.5-million / $1.7-million renovation) was struck by a container ship on the river Elbe and sunk after a failed tack steered the sailing ship directly into the container ship’s path.

Thanks to the quick response from five rescue boats (German Life Rescue Society DLRG, the largest voluntary life-saving society in the world) and the fire brigade who were attending a minor accident a few hundred meters away. “If we hadn’t been in the vicinity there could have been fatalities,” a fire service official, Wilfried Sprekels, told the local newspaper Stader Tageblatt.

Passenger Almut Koerting – “We have experienced a wonderful, lovingly maintained ship, which beautifully drove us down Elbe River, and then, incredibly enough, still took her people to port in spite of being severely damaged in the collision.”

Wolfgang Bentz, who worked on restoring the ship, told the radio station NDR that he and colleagues had spent the night watching over the wreck, whose broken mast was protruding from the water. “I couldn’t sleep all night,” he said.

Bentz said there was a chance that the Elbe No 5 could take to sea again. “It’s made of wood and had some damage before. Let’s see what further damage is added in the rescue effort.”

Elbe Sinking

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Maritime. Bulletin

Container ship ASTROSPRINTER collided with historic wooden sailing ship NO.5 ELBE at around 1200 UTC Jun 8 on Elbe near river Schwinger mouth, Stade. Container ship was proceeding downstream from Hamburg, to North sea. Sailing ship, which costly restoration was completed just a week ago. There were 43 people on board of NO 5 ELBE, all were rescued, but 8 were injured, 1 of them seriously. ASTROSPRINTER continued moving to Elbe estuary, was anchored off Brunsbuettel at around 1430 UTC for pending investigation.

Wooden schooner NO 5 ELBE:
LOA: 121′ 5″ / 37.00m – LOD: 83′ 1″ / 25.32m – Beam: 19′ 6″ / 5.95m – Draft: 12′ 0″ / 3.66m – Ship’s hull: Wood – Engine: General Motors 471 – Registered port: Hamburg – Type of ship: Lotsenschoner – Year built: 1881-1884 – Built by: H.C. Stülcken & Sohn, Hamburg Steinwerder, GER
Container ship ASTROSPRINTER: IMO 9349215, dwt 9526, capacity 809 TEU, built 2007, flag Cyprus, manager ASTROMARE BEREEDERUNGS GMBH.