"Ronja": New construction of a historic pile ewer sails in the Elbe and mudflats

The books on board a sailing ship can reveal a lot. About the owner, and often about the boat itself, on which the nautical literature has been sailing the seas for years. In this case, the books are stored in a cupboard between the deck beams and the saloon cupboard. They include classics of sailing literature. Hiscock's voyages, the adventures of Thor Heyerdahl. Next to them: "Bounty Bay" by Burghard Pieske, "Treasure Island", Flinders' "Circumnavigation of Australia". But the lines are by no means just about distant atolls and exotic anchorages. The ship's library also contains books with plenty of local colour. "Die Halligen Nordfrieslands" is the title of one work, "Meeresströmungen und Gezeiten" another. Titles such as "Sagen aus Schleswig-Holstein", "Die Sprache der Finkenwerder Fischer" and "Die Piraten von Amrum" are stored in the bookcase.

Other special boats:

• "Wonderful": Gunboat 72 with flybridge like a roof terrace in a speed rush
• "Pellew": replica of a pilot cutter based on a historical model

Big dreams must have driven the owner of this ship, but also this: a penchant for the local waters of the north, a fondness for the marvellous worlds of the tidal flats. In addition, maritime traditions that have been largely forgotten seem to be close to his heart. And indeed, what the books promise certainly corresponds to the outward appearance of this ship, which is moored in Husum's inland harbour on a quiet evening. The boat is bobbing at the pier with a high curved bow, painted in an old red colour. The wooden mast, the gaff, the deck, the superstructure, the entire ship. We are talking about a 14.99 metre long and 25 tonne pile ewer, constructed according to the models of old fishing boats that sailed on the Elbe and North Sea until the 20th century. Added to this were the owner's ideas.

He wanted a beautiful and seaworthy ship. One that he would be able to live on. And a vessel with which he would be able to show guests the Baltic Sea, but above all the sands, Halligen and water worlds of the North Frisian Islands. But the ship's most outstanding feature is probably this: The owner built his "Ronja" with his own hands over a period of five years, constructed from 40 cubic metres of wood, most of which came from an eight-hectare natural forest that belonged to a friend at the time. No small endeavour. Rather an operation that only a boat maniac would embark on - and which in the end is entirely in keeping with the books in the on-board library. Motto: big adventure, unconventional boat. A life at sea with a clear head and a thousand bold ideas in your head.

Everything is constructed from heavy-duty wood. Brand: indestructible

In the early evening he comes on board, John von Eitzen, 67 years old, jeans, grey hair, grey beard. He walks lightly across the deck, gymnastics down the heavy companionway into the saloon. He has owned the ship for 25 years. Von Eitzen has lived on it and made countless journeys on the oak planks. Mainly along the German and Danish North Sea coast. The ewer cruised in the tidal flats, the skipper let the flat-bottomed ship fall dry and travelled on to the islands at night at high tide: Amrum, Föhr, Pellworm. Always with respect for the sea and the dynamic habitat of the mudflats.

How many nautical miles has he already travelled on the "Ronja"? "I don't know, I'd have to dig out a bunch of logbooks and do the maths," says von Eitzen. "It would take too long." Instead, there is hot soup below deck. Down in the saloon, four comfortable berths open up and you sleep right next to the white-painted beam walkways. There is a large table in the centre, and further aft is the galley with a chart table and plenty of storage space. Everything is made of heavy wood. Brand: indestructible. You are surrounded by real boat building, so to speak.

The fact that the "Ronja" is not a vain holiday steamer, but rather a fairly original replica of the former working ships, is immediately apparent to anyone who takes a walk above deck. A thick bulwark surrounds the ship, a sea fence fitted with rope. The running rigging is guided by large wooden blocks, the varnished boom extends metres aft. At the back is the angular tiller, the huge cockpit and the old steering compass. Without question, the ship is equipped. As if it wanted to set off immediately and possibly sail much further than just across the North Sea and Baltic Sea. The North German skipper, born in Flensburg, also knows a few areas beyond his homeland. "Excursions" have taken him to the Canary Islands, the Mediterranean, off Australia and Tasmania. "But no," says John von Eitzen. "I like the north, you can't get me away from here."

Although "Ronja" was only launched 25 years ago, she is a traditional ship through and through

However, perhaps it is not so much the charm of the Nordic waters that makes him so enthusiastic about domestic seafaring. Perhaps the motives lie deeper. Perhaps von Eitzen's maritime streak has more to do with the ships themselves - and also with a certain philosophy of life. There is another book hidden in the margins of the ship's library. It is entitled "The Ever of the Lower Elbe". Engravings and old photos show various types of boats that have been built in North German shipyards since early history: Old topsail ewers are depicted, an Elbe ewer from Wilstermarsch, the Blankeneser Elb-Ewer "Catharina", built in 1836.

The foreword to the book, written by the author Hans Szymanski in 1932, is remarkable: "For years, travelling on old, repaired and restored cargo and fishing vessels has enjoyed growing popularity." He writes about preserving the "few witnesses of the past and putting them to appropriate new use". These are phrases that John von Eitzen is likely to like, especially when it comes to ships. Restoration, repair, preservation. No off-the-shelf products, no plastic, no throwaway thinking. Instead: the preservation of traditions, the cultivation of old knowledge - in terms of shipbuilding, in terms of sailing. These values can be seen in the "Ronja" and characterise her. Even though the ship was only launched 25 years ago, the good Pfahl-Ewer is a traditional ship through and through.

And that has a lot to do with him. The owner and builder: sailing, living and working on the boat - for him, it's all one and the same. "As far as sailing is concerned, I have a hereditary predisposition, so to speak," says John von Eitzen. His mother sailed on the Elbe in the 1950s. "There was a sailing ball somewhere every weekend," the now 94-year-old still smiles today. "And we went there under sail, in dinghies without an engine."

Sailing youth with Thies Matzen

When the boy was later born, it was no wonder that he ended up on a sailing boat at an early age. At 13, the young John built his own optimist out of plywood, but it soon "flopped", as he still remembers today. At school in Flensburg, he soon found a best friend: Thies Matzen - the irrefutable circumnavigator who would later become a luminary. Together with his wife Kicki Ericson, Thies Matzen soon set sail for the remotest parts of the world on the 9.20 metre long "Wanderer III", which once belonged to Eric and Susan Hiscock. Matzen and his wife will live on the small ship for 40 years. They will cross all the oceans, head for the high latitudes and escape the modern world in their own way. Two people who write sailing history.

The teenager John von Eitzen spends his youth with the same Thies Matzen. On the water, of course. After the Opti sinks, one day John is given a skerry cruiser - and soon realises why. The boat had no engine, was very old and hopelessly leaky. "We had to constantly steer to keep the boat afloat." Nevertheless, they make miles. They sailed together to the Danish South Sea, anchored and slept on board. As students - with zero money. In the long summers, in the cold autumn holidays.

In the end, however, young John von Eitzen had to burn his completely dilapidated skerry cruiser. Even then, the teenager asked himself: "Why couldn't we save the boat? How could we have repaired the old boat and got it afloat again?" They didn't know enough back then. They were young and didn't have a penny in their pockets. But their view of the world was slowly forming. A view of things. They read a lot in those days. Not comics. They inhaled Henry David Thoreau's "Walden", the literary works of Joseph Conrad, Slocum, Moitessier, the Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin and Erskine Childers.

After a first tjalk of his own, von Eitzen then came to a large, 22-metre-long See-Ewer

The texts are not always necessarily set at sea. They deal with the big questions. Freedom, justice, self-determination. Themes for which the water is a suitable place for reflection. In the seventies, John and Thies got hold of an old open lifeboat, put a mast on it and sailed through Denmark for a whole summer. Later, John is given an old tugboat and sails around Funen with mended sails. This also set the course for the young von Eitzen, now in his early 20s. "Those were marvellous times, especially when it came to the boats," he remembers today. "Every boat was unique, created just for its purpose." And it was the workboats in particular that interested him from then on: Fishing boats, pilot cutters, old cargo barges.

The biography of John von Eitzen takes its course. He soon trained - naturally - as a boat builder and lived with a friend on an old shark cutter. These were formative years. Von Eitzen gains experience as a boat builder, lays lace bottoms, restores old cargo ships and learns from the ground up. Then came a big step: after building his first own tjalk, von Eitzen somehow managed to get a loan - and was now able to buy the "Jonas": a large, 22-metre-long sea ewer that had been lying as a wreck in Husum harbour for years.

John von Eitzen works tirelessly on the ship with friends for three years. It is his dream. His new life at sea. Over the next few years, he will sail countless guests on the large ewer through the Wadden Sea and across the Baltic Sea. He sails charters, travels with young people and takes trips with homeless people. Sometimes he picks up "a bunch of punks" on the coast and sails out with them. "Sea air has never done anyone any harm," he says looking back.

Von Eitzen wanted a ship that he had designed and built himself

You have to know a little about John von Eitzen's life to understand this ship: the "Ronja", which he wants to bring from Husum to the Elbe in these April days. She is his idea, his work. Ultimately, this boat embodies his philosophy of life, which he formed with his friend Thies Matzen back then. Nothing off the peg. Nothing ruminated that only floats for money. He preferred to let his own heart speak, his own ideas prevail and his own hands do the work. You could also say: one man, one boat - whereby in this case, the ship and the biography form a symbiosis in the best sense of the word.

And so it all began with the "Ronja". After years at sea, the day came when von Eitzen said to himself: "I want my own ship. One that I designed and built myself." He searched for books about old ships, collected sketches and rummaged through archives. He also came across the history of the Pfahl-Ewer. A type of ship that was imported to the Elbe lowlands by Dutch settlers at the end of the 11th century.

The ewer probably developed from a three-decked barge. The basic shape of the boat, the flat bottom and the typical barge plank were retained - while the "rest of the ship" above it grew steadily due to its use. As fishing and cargo boats, these ships were soon perfectly adapted to local conditions. They felt just as at home on the mudflats as they did on the Lower Elbe, tolerated the freshwater current of the river, liked the tides and the open sea, on which they sailed effortlessly to the islands.

Von Eitzen builds the stem and some larger components from pressed cardboard in the garden for visualisation purposes

For a long time, Blankenese was a stronghold of the Ewer, they were often built in Finkenwerder, where the boat builders of the Elbe island were regarded as excellent builders. The fishermen then went out on their innovative boats. They caught butts, plaice and sole on the North Sea and smelts and eels in their nets on the Elbe. This went on for centuries - until the last ewer was built in 1884 and after that only cutters were in demand. John von Eitzen had such an old ewer in mind. This bold idea came to him in the early 1990s - well over 100 years after the last ewer was launched. He soon sold the "Jonas" in order to realise his new plan. And then, "yes, then I disappeared into the forest".

He used a tractor to drive the tonnes of oak wood he cut there to the countryside near the Eider. The boat was to be built there, on a friend's farm. John von Eitzen lived in a caravan in the meadow, the band saws and machines were in the barn next door. Travelling journeymen helped to build the boat. In the evenings, they played skat with the farmers. It took five years to build the "Ronja" - from 1993 to 1998. von Eitzen completed the ship in Husum, taking care of the deck, superstructure and interior fittings. Then he launched the ewer. Where it naturally and historically belonged: in the North Sea.

A great moment: "The ship was basically 150 years old, and yet it was now floating brand new before my eyes." What happened was what he had hoped for: marvellous sailing in the mudflats, an experience like hundreds of years ago - and all with some of the comfort and knowledge of today. Hundreds of passengers also travelled on the "Ronja" in the years to come, on a genuine old sailing ship that has left its mark on the seafaring of the North.

John von Eitzen remembers one trip in particular. When a historic bell was recast in Haithabu and sailed to the Danish Viking Museum in Ribe, the "Ronja" served as the official escort boat. A tribute to the very old days. Living history, under sail.

"Ronja" to stay on the home coast

The next morning, von Eitzen is up early. With the water running out, he heads out and sets a course southwards. The journey continues past St. Peter-Ording towards the Elbe, where the "Ronja" is heading towards a new future. A moderate wind from the north blows the boat leisurely across the North Sea, the sails are set and the ship rolls through the sea with astonishing agility. Due to the shallow bottom and a draught of only one metre, the ewer reacts sensitively despite its weight, and the helmsman has to pay close attention to the course.

Nautical mile after nautical mile, the ewer heads south, and to the fishing boats on the North Sea, the "Ronja" must seem like an apparition from long-forgotten days. The large gaff sail stands wine-red against the sky, the white foresail billows out, while the raised bow marches stoically through the waves. It looks beautiful. Genuine, old and authentic. Not like every ship - but like those that have their own story to tell.

John von Eitzen stands at the tiller in dark oilskins. The boy from the coast still has big plans, even a good five decades after he built his first Optimist. And of course, once again, it all has to do with his favourite boats. He has long been living and sailing on another boat, a larger one, over on Föhr, where he worked as a sailing instructor for twelve years. What will happen to his "Ronja" remains to be seen. Perhaps it will be used specifically for youth sailing, or possibly become the property of a club. Only one thing is certain. The "Ronja" will remain on the local coast. In the north, in the mudflats, on the Elbe, off the islands.

Technical data of the "Ronja"

• Shipyard: Self-build
• Year of construction: 1993 to 1998
• Material: Larch on oak
• Torso length: 14,99 m
• Width: 4,60 m
• Depth: 1,00 m
• Weight: 25,0 t
• Sail area on the wind: 90,0 m²
• Machine: 75 HP