The sea cruiser "Gertrud III" is unrivalled with its canoe stern, monstrous jib boom, long mast and striking wheelhouse. The wooden classic from 1938 became the property of three retirees who simply wanted to sail it.
"We're actually landlubbers." Detlef Kosig is standing on the foredeck; he laughs as he explains how the sea cruiser found its current owner, his friend Carlos Brandl, and his fellow travellers - himself and Peter Feldt, the only experienced sailor in the triumvirate - and what they have been able to experience together since then. Feldt is standing next to him; he's busy putting on the jib sheets.
The deck is accessed via the huge jib boom, which is classically laid from solid teak rods on the oak deck beams. The classic - empty - displacing seven tonnes and measured at 6 KR does not move as it moves aft along the superstructure, while the sun makes the naturally varnished superstructure roof shine. Under the deckhouse, which covers half the cockpit, the entire crew and the cockpit table, on which the coffee is already waiting, find a shady spot.
"We were a bit naïve in our approach," says Kosig, whose mischievous facial expression reveals that they have no regrets about the seven years that the friends have spent together restoring their sea cruiser "Gertrud". "We didn't realise exactly what we were getting into when we bought it. And it was quite a lot."
The purchase took place in 2013. By this time, Kosig had retired from active professional life as an art dealer. One of his last purchases was a ship. At the time, Kosig wanted to fulfil a long-cherished dream. The seagoing, steel, articulated chandler is a bargain, but not what an aesthete with a sense of form and proportion would dream of.
The woodwork on the deck of the classic takes a lot of time
But the "Gertrud" is moored not far from the berth - and casts a spell over Kosig. His friend Brandl, to whom he shows the classic, shares his enthusiasm ad hoc. Although the Berliner is not an active sailor either, he loves vintage and classic cars.
Both are fascinated by the woodwork on board the classic "Getrud", especially below deck. But it took a while before the owner at the time could bring himself to sell. Hans-Jürgen Luderer had bought the sea cruiser first-hand over 40 years earlier and invested a lot of money, time and love in his "Gertrud". In the end, he was plagued by health problems, which did not make it any easier to say goodbye.
For Luderer, this marked the end of more than one phase of his life. In the spring of 1972, he and his newlywed wife had taken over the 34-year-old sea cruiser from the Hamburg dentist Karl Maass.
One year before the outbreak of the Second World War, Maass had today's classic built according to his own wishes and named it after his wife. He chose the shipyard of Martin v. Cölln on the Finkenwerder Aueinsel. It is not known who actually built the ship. What is certain, however, is that Maass had a very clear idea of what he wanted.
The result was an ultra-modern craft for the Hamburg sailors of the time. The canoe stern had been praised as ideal by Max Oertz since the 1920s. Hein Garbers, a popular shipbuilder and sailor in Hamburg, had given his "Windspiel III", completed in 1935, such a stern and sailed it from east to west across the Atlantic just a few years after it was built.
"Gertrud III"- From modern sea cruiser to classic
The sturdy design in solid oak was typical for shipyards such as v. Cölln, where pleasure craft and smaller work boats were built in parallel.
The monstrous mainsail with a snail reef in combination with the small foresail triangle - the jib was not originally intended - was considered seaworthy. The sail area could be reduced relatively easily at the mast, where the ship's movements are at their lowest. The small jib, on the other hand, remained in place for a long time. Without backstays, tacking up the Elbe was child's play.
The sizes that followed the concept - high hull weight due to the design, correspondingly large sail area, again correspondingly large ballast - were considered contemporary by cruising sailors, as were the resulting forces and movements, which to this day give the impression of travelling on a much larger ship.
Maass sailed the initially motorless classic in the old school style; the original fittings still bear witness to this. In front of the mast, there is a tiny cabin with a bunk for the boy next to the sails. The deckhand enters the cabin, which can only be reached from the saloon through a small hatch in the crawlspace, via the fore hatch when the ship's command is enjoying a drink on the sofa after work.
In the absence of an aft cabin, which was common on the larger yachts of the time, the crew spent the night in two spacious dog berths on either side of the companionway. The food supply and waste disposal compartments are located between these berths and the saloon.
During the war, the proud owner hid the brand-new sea cruiser in the Elbe marshes, where it survived undamaged under an old tarpaulin. The turmoil of the post-war period becomes dangerous once again because the occupying forces are on the lookout for artefacts like this one. But somehow Maass succeeds, and in the 1950s he is finally back at the tiller of his "Gertrud".
Built in 1938, the sea cruiser is only in its third owner
When Luderer became aware of the classic, Maass was already an old man. His two daughters were not interested in the takeover at the time, reports Luderer's wife Uschi, who still enjoys reminiscing about her time on the "Gertrud".
They start with their honeymoon in their first summer in Sweden. The couple sailed the double-ender for around ten years without any offspring. Further voyages to the far north followed, sailing day and night. Uschi Luderer's memories of this time remain vivid - for example, approaching the Pea Islands in the fog, entering Læsø with the engine out or the stormy night off the drift anchor in the Kattegat. "That was something for my husband," she says looking back, because he loved these challenges.
Her husband was also very ambitious when it came to speed, the sprightly senior remembers: "He always said that this classic had to run." In the following years, the "Gertrud" was fitted with a jib boom, a large genoa and a half-winder measuring more than 60 square metres. As the mast could not cope with this for long, it was soon replaced by a top-rigged one. Keeping up with the old pre-war construction or even overtaking it became a sport for the owner: "That was always the best thing for him!"
Maass is also prepared to make many other sacrifices for his "Gertrud". Soon after buying the boat, he had the outer skin covered with GRP at Asmus in Glückstadt, the stick deck was completely rebuilt in the first few years of ownership, and the superstructure was replaced at the same time. And the 15 hp "strong" petrol engine - the first owner initially only had one with 10 hp - was replaced by a 36 hp three-cylinder diesel from Bukh.
When the next generation arrived in the early 1980s, the voyages became smaller and "Gertrud" was given her deckhouse. Together with the sailmakers Hinsch & Ruhland, Luderer develops a horizontal reefing system that allows the mainsail to be reefed by pulling on a line along the luff.
Today, before setting sail from Heikendorf, the peculiar cloth poses many a puzzle. Like so many other things on board, Kosig and Feldt remember the time of the takeover seven years ago.
The first problem is called osmosis - with a classic made of wood
At that time, the new owners immediately set about taking stock and sought expert advice from their harbour master Björn Broertjes. Not only has he known the "Gertrud" for many years, he also has a solution for all problems and knows who can solve them and where to get what they need.
The first problem is called "osmosis" - in a wooden classic of all things. But it is clear that the GRP coating on the outer skin is badly damaged. "I didn't even know what it was," recalls Kosig, explaining that the first summer was not spent sailing, but instead being filled.
An estimated 60 to 80 kilos of epoxy resin are applied at the time, with never-ending intermediate sanding phases, and a boat builder also replaces the rudder blade and large parts of the gunwale. "Leaves had clogged the scuppers and the standing water had penetrated deep into the structure," says Kosig, for whom such terms were previously foreign words. Then the three-tonne cast iron keel has to be resealed before "Gertrud" can float again. The mast cannot simply be replaced either: Moisture that has penetrated over the years has left its mark on the base of the mast. The solution is a solid stainless steel sleeve.
Back at the berth, the next step is to restore the "Gertrud" below deck to the elegant condition in which she presents herself today. All the varnished surfaces are given a new coat of paint, the deck beams are painted white to brighten up the saloon. The ship's sides are sanded down to the raw oak wood by a woodworker friend and then saturated with Owatrol oil, as is the bilge, which is now dust-dry.
Successes and difficulties in the restoration process of the classic "Gertrud"
Then it's the turn of the drive. Brandel and Kosig are glad that their friend Peter Feldt is dedicated to the installation. The Berliner spent his professional life in the bronze foundry of the "Sabina" owner (see "The special boat" in YACHT 5/2014) Hermann Noack, who was part of the winning Admiral's Cup team in 1983. On the "Gertrud", Feldt is responsible for all technical matters and ship management.
Working on the engine is a back-breaking job, not least because Feldt has to squeeze himself into the depths of the engine bay. But he gets the leaking stuffing box under control, replaces the entire on-board electrical system and sets the engine up with new swinging elements. Nevertheless, in the end his efforts were not enough to be able to make the long-awaited first trip.
"We were on the verge of throwing in the towel," says Kosig, as Feldt explains what happened next. When the first trip finally seemed possible, he urged them to go on an extensive test drive. "The Bukh had a single-circuit system and we thought it was already pretty clogged," says Feldt.
Kosig had already found a berth on the Baltic Sea, where the men wanted to transfer their sea cruiser. "We then sailed for half an hour under partial load in Harburg's inland harbour," says Feldt. "I said at the end: 'It's OK' - and then it went poof and hiss. Ten minutes before we would have finished."
Everything to zero. Feldt subsequently dismantles the old Bukh and realises that the camshaft has "seized". Since a classic cannot even be sold without an engine, a new one is ordered without further ado. The Vetus four-cylinder diesel disappears into the belly of the "Gertrud" amid various minor dramas, which takes another nine months.
It was late in autumn 2019 when the "Gertrud" sailed across the Kiel Canal to Heikendorf as its new home port. Since then, the three men on their classic boat have been enjoying what they had dreamed of for years: free time on the water.
There hasn't been much sailing time yet, just a few trim strokes, which alone were necessary to sift through the countless sails. Today, with little wind, we're leaving the box in Heikendorf fishing harbour for the first time just for fun.
The midsummer weather is ideal for this purpose. However, the atmosphere of roaring seafaring that has been passed down from Luderer's time does not materialise due to the lack of wind. "Gertrud" takes it in her stride and sways slowly in the swell of the passing shipping - like a contented sea dweller, as if she realises that after two owners to whom she meant everything, there is now a new crew on board who seem to feel the same way.
Technical data sea cruiser "Gertrud III":
- Shipyard/Year: Martin v. Cölln/1938
- Material: oak on oak, polyester cover
- Hull length/width/draft: 9.61/2.77/1.60 m
- Displacement: 7.0 tonnes
- Sail area downwind (measurement certificate): 45 m²
- Large/genoa/jib: 37/38/22 m²
- Engine: Vetus 4-cylinder, 42 hp
