WANDER BIRD (ELBE 5)

Description

HISTORY

• Built as the pilot schooner "Elbe 5" after a design by Gustav Junge at the H.C. St�lcken & Sohn shipyard in Hamburg, GER in ***3.

• Retired from pilot service in ***4 and purchased by author Warwick Tompkins in ***8, in ***9 commissioned as a cruising yacht and sail training vessel, renamed the "Wander Bird".

• Made a total of *3 trans-Atlantic crossings in this time, in ***6 Tompkins sailed her around Cape Horn to San Francisco Bay, after a voyage to Tahiti, Tompkins laid the schooner up in Sausalito, California in ***1 where she became a houseboat for his ex-wife.

• ***9 purchased by Harold and Anna Sommers, begin of a restoring, fitted with her first engine, sailed for the first time in June, ***1.

• Was not used much by the Sommers and was offered for sale in ***2, after some unsuccessful trials to sell her back to Germany she departed Sausalito for Seattle in October ***8, the new owners Jim Flury and David Cook intended to offer charter cruises in Mexican waters but instead chartered her to a non-profit group in Seattle to serve as a sail training ship and goodwill ambassador for the city, this program never got started but the schooner remained in Seattle.

• On initiative of the "Stiftung Hamburg Maritim" the ships returned to Hamburg on October 7, ***2 where an overhaul of electrical equipment began and the rigging and deck will be checked, all necessary work is done in the context of the project "Jugend in Arbeit Hamburg e.V.".

• Since ***4 used as charter ship for day trips and longer voyages.