DHis refurbished naval training ship “Gorch Fock” arrived in Wilhelmshaven after an early trial run. On Wednesday night, two tugboats accompanied the tall ship towards the port of Emerald City. The “Gorch Fock” left the Lürssen shipyard in Bremen on Wednesday morning and returned on its own for the first time in nearly six years. However, due to technical defects, the test drive ended early.
Shortly after departure, “Gorch Fock” was towed away by a tugboat. The crew found a defective control valve that provided fresh water to drive the diesel engine. In order to replace the valve during the test drive, the machine stopped temporarily and was taken over by the accompanying tug. However, it turns out that the damage cannot be repaired during the test drive. Therefore, the nautical training ship went to Wilhelmshaven earlier than originally planned.
In fact, the “Gorch Fock” was actually scheduled to arrive in Wilhelmshaven only on Thursday in order to be equipped with the final equipment in the local naval arsenal after two days of trial voyages in Weser and the North Sea. The shipyard announced that it will now replace defective parts as part of the final equipment.
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The shipyard spokesperson emphasized that the test drive is to accurately determine such defects. “Shipyard test drives like today are used to test the necessary interaction of technology and individual shipboard components under real conditions to locate the causes of errors and correct them afterwards.”
Since the autumn of 2019, the Lürssen shipyard is the second shipyard to be built on the “Gorch Fock”. The former contractor Elsflether Werft has filed for bankruptcy. They caused a huge cost increase, causing the price of the overhaul to increase from the planned 10 million euros to 135 million euros.
