page_title: SMS Seeadler (1888)
section_title: SMS Seeadler
hierarchical_section_title: SMS Seeadler (1888) / SMS Seeadler
caption_attribution_description: English: The Imperial German Navy windjammer SMS Seeadler in full sail on the high seas. Sailors can be seen near the prow, including one man, possibly meant to be her commander, Count von Luckner, gazing through a telescope.
context_page_description: SMS Seeadler was a three-master steel-hulled sailing ship. She was one of the last fighting sailing ships to be used in war when she served as a merchant raider with Imperial Germany in World War I. Built as the British-flagged Pass of Balmaha, she was captured by the German submarine SM U-36, and in 1916 converted to a commerce raider. As Seeadler she had a successful raiding career, capturing and sinking 15 ships in 225 days until she was wrecked, in 2 August 1917, in French Polynesia.
context_section_description: By 1916 the Allies had blockaded German warships in the North Sea, and any commerce raiders that succeeded in breaking out lacked foreign or colonial bases for resupply of coal. This gave rise to the idea of equipping a sailing ship instead, since it would not require coaling.
  Seeadler was equipped with an auxiliary engine, hidden lounges, accommodation for additional crew and prisoners, two hidden 105 mm guns, mounted on either side of the forecastle, two hidden heavy machine guns, a pair of torpedo tubes for anti-cruiser purposes, and rifles for boarding parties. These weapons were rarely fired (the torpedo tubes never), and many of the 15 ships encountered by Seeadler were sunk with only one single accidental casualty on either side during the entire journey.
  On 21 December 1916, she sailed under the command of Kapitänleutnant Felix von Luckner. The ship was disguised as a Norwegian wood carrier and succeeded in crossing the British blockading line despite being boarded for an inspection. The crew had been handpicked partly for their ability to speak Norwegian. Over the next 225 days, she captured 15 ships in the Atlantic and Pacific and led the British and US Navies on a merry chase.
  Her journey ended wrecked on a reef at the island of Mopelia 450 kilometres (280 mi) from Tahiti in the Society Islands, part of French Polynesia. The ship needed maintenance so that her hull could be scraped clean but she was too big for Mopelia's harbour and so had to lay anchor outside the reef. Disaster struck when on 2 August 1917 a large tidal wave lifted the ship and smashed her on the reef, totally destroying the ship. Luckily no prisoners or crew were killed. Luckner and some crew sailed for Fiji, where they were captured and imprisoned. The French schooner Lutece, of 126 tons, was captured by the remaining crew on 5 September 1917. They sailed to Easter Island as Fortuna, arriving on 4 October and running aground there, after which they were interned by the Chilean authorities.
caption: SMS Seeadler by Christopher Rave
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