For the 17th time, the "High Seas High School" project has enabled its participants to combine learning and sailing. After seven months at sea, the students and crew return home on 1 May.
The Atlantic voyage of the 15 to 18-year-old crew from Kiel, Hamburg, Oldenburg, Cologne, Munich and Switzerland will end in Hamburg's Sandtorhafen harbour. The "Johann Smidt" will moor in the traditional ship harbour at around 11 a.m., and relatives are planning an atmospheric reception. Hartwig Henke, "High Seas High School" project manager at Hermann-Lietz-Schule, Spiekeroog, and Nikolaus Kern, chairman of the Clipper DJS e.V. association, will also welcome the pupils, teachers and the volunteer crew of captain, helmsmen and machinists.
The students have already started packing their sea bags, are preparing for the final leg through the English Channel and have spruced up the ship for the arrival day. Together, the young people have braved the Atlantic waves, weathered stormy winds and enjoyed the gentle trade winds. And they crammed maths, swotted up on biology and struggled through Spanish vocabulary. Along the way, of course, they also learnt about ship operations. This has now become so natural to them that, towards the end of the trip, the ship's command was handed over to the students - under the supervision of the volunteer crew.
Tenerife, Barbados, Panama, Mexico and Cuba were on the sailor's route to the south. Land excursions lasting several weeks brought variety for the newly qualified sailors and many impressions of the different cultures and ways of life. The return journey was via the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Azores.
The "Johann Smidt" is a topsail schooner built in Amsterdam in 1974. The ship is 36 metres long, 8 metres wide and has 36 fixed berths. The sail area is 471 square metres.
The Clipper DJS association was founded in Bremen in 1973 as the Deutsches Jugendwerk zur See e.V., a non-profit organisation. Young people between the ages of 15 and 26, but also all other sailing enthusiasts, should be given the opportunity to learn and experience traditional seamanship. Experienced captains, helmsmen, machinists and cooks, who run the ships on a voluntary basis in their free time or during their holidays, ensure that the cruises run smoothly. Above all, they teach everyone who sails with them what they need to know about sailing, the ship and seafaring, because no-one needs any previous seafaring knowledge to come on board.
The "High Seas High School" project has become popularly known as "The Sailing Classroom" in reference to Erich Kästner.
