Dear readers,

It is a gruesome picture: the oversized grab of a floating crane lifts the front part of the hull of the 30 metre long and around four metre wide "Ethel von Brixham" into the air, while the aft part of the ship stranded on the causeway off Cuxhaven simply remains there.

The scene was captured a week ago and is just the start of a scrapping operation that is no big deal for the salvage experts with their large-scale clearing equipment. In just a few hours, everything belonging to the traditional sailing ship will be loaded piece by piece onto a floating pontoon and transported away for disposal.

What is a routine job for some is seen by others as the end of a monument to maritime culture. Because the bright red schooner with the striking deck structure was launched 136 years ago in Brixham, England, and served as a commercial vessel for almost a hundred years. Initially as a trawler in deep-sea fishing, later, without a rig, as a coaster.

The ship came to Germany in 1981, was fitted with a schooner rig and sailed with paying guests. At the end of last year, a young Englishman bought the ship and, with a lot of idealism and little money, set about transferring it to his home country. He didn't get far. It ran aground off Cuxhaven.

It was the beginning of the end and the reporting on it was one of the most widely read articles of its day on yacht.com. It seemed as if the story had struck a nerve.

Inspire traditional sailors. Projects such as the sailing classroom or High Seas High School are real success stories, Sail Training on the ships of the German Youth Organisation at Sea Clipperor the "Alexander von Humbold II" and educational sailing trips, for example at the Youth Sailing Club enjoy a high reputation due to their high success rates.

Events such as the Flensburg Rum Regattawhich Windjammer parade the Kieler Woche, or festivals like the Sail Bremerhaven attract thousands of onlookers. They are tourist magnets and therefore also real economic factors. Not least because of this The federal government supports the scene with millions in funding.

On the other hand, the fleet in this country is, figuratively speaking, in heavy seas. Ever stricter regulations make it difficult for owners and operators to keep ships maintained and in service, not least because compliance is associated with high costs.

Financing a traditional sailing ship is a Herculean task per se. Owners regularly cancel their sails, and the "brown fleet" has suffered several total losses in recent years. Not enough donations were found for the Marstal schooner "Zuversicht" and no new owner wanted to receive the ship, which sails well and is true to the original, as a gift, it was finally scrapped at a shipyard in Kiel in 2024.

The owner of the "Norden", a Norske Jagd built in 1870, was also unable to pay for the overdue renovation of his ship, In 2022, it was sawn up on the harbour site in Neustadt.

Until recently, what was left of the "Feuerland" stood in Flensburg's museum harbour after an enthusiast acquired Günter Plüschow's former expedition ship on the Falkland Islands and brought it to Germany for a restoration that never took place. This prominent traditional ship was also the victim of a chainsaw massacre.

The "Falado of Rhodes" went deep off Iceland in 2013 - She is also a traditional sailing ship, albeit a replica and, according to experts, one with built-in weaknesses. However, the ship had served faithfully as a youth ship for many years until it went on its last voyage, suffering from old age.

So now the "Ethel of Brixham". Just another wreck that was disposed of after more than a hundred years because a ship doesn't last forever?

Her end was unnecessary. The last German owner had lovingly looked after the preservation of the rare Brixham trawler since 1996. And he would have continued to do so. The separation from the ship was due to a new traditional ship regulation. This stipulated the installation of collision bulkheads. However, this was not possible due to the design. And so the owner had no way of continuing to operate the ship.

It is a tragedy how maritime heritage is treated in this country. Not only from an idealistic point of view - traditional sailing ships are floating open-air museums and the last place where it is still possible to gain an insight into the working world of the various seafarers of the past. They are also of very practical use, as described above.

In Germany, it is thanks to the commitment of tireless enthusiasts that this heritage is being preserved. And a few initiatives such as the Hamburg Maritime Foundationwhich has been doing an exemplary job for 25 years and has already rescued many ships with a regional connection to the Hanseatic city.

The state provides subsidies, which are distributed with a watering can, but it is not involved conceptually, on the contrary. As regulations become increasingly difficult to fulfil, operators are decommissioning their ships or selling them abroad, like the "Ethel of Brixham".

In the Scandinavian countries, efforts to preserve maritime heritage are widely accepted by the population. Above all, however, this heritage is seen as an identity-forming element and is supported by the state not only financially, but also through more flexible regulations and a firm anchoring in cultural and monument protection. I think we should learn from this.

Lasse Johannsen

Deputy Editor-in-Chief of YACHT

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