Gorch Fock ( 1933 ) The Gorch Fock I ( ex Tovarishch , ex Gorch Fock ) is a German three - mast barque , the first of a series built as school ships for the German Reichsmarine in 1933 . She was taken as war reparations by the Soviet Union after World War II and renamed " Tovarishch " . After a short period under the Ukrainian flag in the 1990s and a prolonged stay in British ports due to lack of funds for necessary repairs , the ship was acquired by sponsors and sailed to her original home port of Stralsund , where her original name of " Gorch Fock " was restored on November 29 , 2003 . She is a museum ship , and extensive repairs were carried out in 2008 The Federal German government built a replacement training ship , the " Gorch Fock ( 1958 ) " , which is still in service . History and details . The German school ship " Segelschulschiff Niobe " , a three - masted barque , capsized on July 26 , 1932 in the Baltic Sea near Fehmarn due to a sudden squall , killing 69 . The loss prompted the German Navy to order a new training vessel built . The contract went to the shipyard of Blohm & Voss in Hamburg , where construction began on December 2 , 1932 . She was completed in only 100 days . On May 3 , 1933 the ship was launched and baptized " Gorch Fock " in honor of German writer Johann Kinau who wrote under the pseudonym " Gorch Fock " . Kinau had died in the 1916 Battle of Jutland aboard the cruiser " SMS Wiesbaden " . Commissioned by the German Navy on June 26 , 1933 , the " Gorch Fock " is a three masted barque . She has square sails on the fore and main masts , and is gaff rigged on the mizzen . The hull steel and has a sparred length of , a width of and a draught of . She has a displacement at full load of 1510 tons . Her main mast stands high above deck and she carries 23 sails totalling . She is equipped with an auxiliary engine of 410 kW ( 550 hp ) . The training ship was designed to be robust and safe against capsizing . More than 300 tons of steel ballast in the keel give her a righting moment large enough to bring her back in the upright position even when she heels over to nearly a 90° . The " Gorch Fock " served as a training vessel for the German Reichsmarine prior to World War II . During the war , she was a stationary office ship in Stralsund , until she was officially reactivated on April 19 , 1944 . On 1 May 1945 , the crew scuttled her in shallow waters off Rügen in an attempt to avoid her capture by the Soviets , who already had fired at her for 45 minutes with tanks . The Soviets ordered Stralsund - based company " B . Staude Schiffsbergung " to raise and salvage her , which after some difficulties was done in 1947 at a cost of 800 , 000 Reichsmark . She was under restoration between 1948 and 1950 . She was then named " Tovarishch " ( " Comrade " in Russian ) in 1951 and put into service as a training vessel . Her new home port was Odessa . She participated in many Tall Ships ' Races and cruised far and wide on the seven seas . She made a voyage around the world in 1957 and won the Operation Sail race twice , in 1974 and 1976 . After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 , the " Tovarishch " sailed under the Ukrainian flag ( home port Kherson ) until 1993 , when she was needed repairs and deactivated for lack of funds . In 1995 , she sailed from Kherson to Newcastle - upon - Tyne , where private sponsors wanted to have her repaired . This failed because of the high costs , and in 1999 , the ship was transported to Wilhelmshaven , where she stayed in dock for four years until finally transferred to Stralsund in 2003 . On November 29 , 2003 the ship was re - christened " Gorch Fock " . As of 2011 the ship is in poor but stable condition . There is about six million dollars worth of restoration work required to bring this ship back to sailing condition . The museum had a dismal tourist season resulting in a fifty thousand dollar loss in revenue from previous years . This has forced a layoff of five workers . Sister ships . The design of the " Gorch Fock " proved highly successful . She was the first of a series of five ships built by Blohm & Voss , and a number of South American school ships are also based on the same design . Of the three original sister ships , only the " Mircea " is an exact replica of the " Gorch Fock " . The " Horst Wessel " and the " Albert Leo Schlageter " are 7 meters longer , and all three have slightly more powerful auxiliary engines . USCGC " Eagle " ( ex " Horst Wessel " ) . The " Horst Wessel " was launched in 1936 — the growing Reichsmarine needed more school ships . Her home port was Kiel . At the end of World War II , she was assigned to the U . S . After some repairs in Wilhelmshaven and Bremerhaven , she was sailed by her German crew including the Captain together with American sailors to her new home port of New London , Connecticut . Since then , she has sailed under the name " Eagle " for the United States Coast Guard . " Sagres III " ( ex " Albert Leo Schlageter " ) . The " Albert Leo Schlageter " was launched on October 30 , 1937 . She was confiscated by the United States after World War II , and then sold to Brazil , where she sailed as a school ship under the name " Guanabara " . In 1961 , the Portuguese Navy bought her to replace the old school ship " Sagres II " ( which was later transferred to Hamburg , where she is a museum ship under her original name " Rickmer Rickmers " ) . The Portuguese named her accordingly " Sagres III " . She still sails as of 2011 , having completed a circumnavigation on the 24th of December 2010 . " Mircea " . The " Mircea " was built by Blohm & Voss for the Romanian Navy . She was launched in 1938 and has always sailed under the Romanian flag ( except for a short period after WWII , when she was confiscated by the Soviet Union ) . She is the only one of the sister ships that is truly identical to the " Gorch Fock " . She was overhauled at the Blohm & Voss shipyards in Hamburg in 1966 , and she still sails . " Herbert Norkus " . Named after the Hitler Youth martyr Herbert Norkus , another ship of the " Gorch Fock " design — with the same dimensions as the " Horst Wessel " — was begun at the Blohm & Voss shipyard . However , the unfinished ship had to be launched prematurely on November 7 , 1939 because the slipway had to be cleared to build submarine s . The hull stayed in the harbor of Hamburg throughout World War II . It was damaged in a bomb raid in 1945 , and instead of being sold to Brazil as had been considered , ended up being filled with gas grenades and sunk in the Skagerrak in 1947 . The yards , which had been prepared , but not yet mounted , and the tackle , which had not yet been rigged , were later used for the " Gorch Fock " built in 1958 . " Gorch Fock " . As Germany had lost all of its training vessels as war reparation s after World War II , the West German Bundesmarine decided in 1957 to have a new training ship built following the plans for the " Gorch Fock " . The new ship was a modernized rebuild of the " Segelschulschiff Horst Wessel " . Coincidentally , her design had been influenced by another shipwreck : whereas the 1933 " Gorch Fock " was built in response to the " Niobe " disaster , the plans of the " SSS Gorch Fock " were altered somewhat after the sinking of the " Pamir " in 1957 . The modern - day SSS " Gorch Fock " was launched on August 23 , 1958 and commissioned on December 17 of that year . Latin American ships . A number of similar ships have been built by the Astilleros Celaya S . A . shipyard in Bilbao for Latin America n Navies , possibly following the Blohm & Voss design . The hulls and rigging of these ships are very similar , the main differences are in the superstructure and they also have larger tanks for both diesel and water , and they are also longer . These ships are the " Gloria " ( 1967 , Colombia ) , the " Guayas " ( 1976 , Ecuador ) , the " Simón Bolívar " ( 1979 , Venezuela ) , and the " Cuauhtémoc " ( 1982 , Mexico ) .