She was the pride of the GDR and its only ocean-going sailing ship:the steel schooner brig "Wilhelm Pieck". Today the sail training ship is called "Greif" after its home port in Greifswald-Wieck.
The two-master was built in 1951 as a present for the 75th birthday of the then GDR President Wilhelm Pieck. This was preceded by a corresponding appeal to the working people of the GDR to hand over gifts to the President. An initiative of shipyard workers in Warnemünde and Stralsund then builds a yacht for the President with donations from the population of more than one million GDR marks.
Named "Wilhelm Pieck" in the GDR
On May 26, 1951, the GDR's first new steel ship was launched. The two-master is christened "Wilhelm Pieck". The President officially hands over the ship to the GDR youth, so that "well-trained and qualified seafarers (...) show through their technical skills that a new youth has grown up in the GDR (...) that is imbued with the spirit of peace and international understanding". In 1954 the ship passed to the "Society for Sport and Technology", a pre-military youth organization, and moved from Rostock-Warnemünde to its new home port of Greifswald-Wieck.
The "Wilhelm Pieck" is a sail training ship mainly on the Baltic Sea and heads for ports in Poland and the USSR. The longest voyage took the ship in 1957 via the Kiel Canal, the English Channel and Biscay to the Mediterranean Sea and on to Odessa on the Black Sea.
"The ship is blowing here"
After reunification, the Treuhandanstalt wants to sell the "Wilhelm Pieck" in 1990. Under the motto "The ship is floating here", an initiative by the city of Greifswald has resulted in the trust handing over the training ship to the Hanseatic city for the symbolic purchase price of one mark. The ship is renamed "Griffin" and thoroughly modernized. Since then it has been cruising the Baltic Sea regularly again. Unlike in GDR times, everyone can sail - and destination ports in Denmark and Sweden are also on the itinerary.
Ship data of the "Griffin"
Year of construction :1951
Ship Type : Schooner Brig
Overall Length : 41 meters
width :7.60 meters
Main mast height :27.20 meters
Draft :3.60 meters
Nation :Germany
Homeport :Greifswald-Wieck
Owner :Hanseatic City of Greifswald
Renovation of a national monument
But at the beginning of 2020 it turns out that rust has hit the "Griffin" hard. The steel plates on the hull are only a few millimeters thick, making the ship no longer seaworthy. The "Greif" can be visited in the port of Greifswald-Wieck, but is no longer allowed to depart with passengers. According to the city, the schooner brig is now to be overhauled from the ground up. The Förderverein Rahsegler Greif e.V. collects donations for this, and the city of Greifswald also wants to support the renovation and later maintenance every year, because the ship is a monument of national importance, according to Stefan Fassbinder (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen).