Tag Archives: boats

Kieler Woche

Kieler Woche, or Kiel week, is the largest sailing event in the world combined with one of the largest town festivals in Germany, attracting over 3 million people every year. Events are organised all along Kiel Fjord, with most of the cultural programme focussed on the inner parts of the Fjord and the sailing events focussed around the Olympic harbour (Schilksee).

Every year Kieler Woche falls on the last week of June, with the events starting on Saturday 22nd June and ending with a fireworks display on Sunday 30th June this year (2013). We made it down there on the opening Saturday to get my first ever taste of Kiel.

Getting There

Driving from Sonderborg to Kiel takes around 1.5hrs. However, Kiel week is particularly crazy, with parking being a big issue. For a more relaxing arrival and departure, leave your car in Flensburg and take the train from Flensburg directly to Kiel. There are trains every hour during the day, and running into the night (extra trains are organised at night on this route during Kiel week). If you are 2-5 people in the group, a Schleswig Holstein group ticket is your cheapest offer.

Getting around

An issue with Kiel week is that the events are spread all over the Fjord. Good walking shoes are a must, but even those will not be enough to get you from the central harbour area to Schilksee for the races. There are two options here: buses (if you have a Schlewsig Holstein ticket you can take a bus from the train station to there for free) or the more scenic option, a ferry. Buses 501 and 502 run from the train station (bus stop A1) to Schilksee every half an hour (3 €) and takes around 45 minutes. The ferry (4€) takes around 1.5 hrs but is a good way of resting your legs on the way back after a day of walking.

What to do

Where do we start? There is plenty to do, and having been there only once we don’t dare to even think that we figured out half of what is going on. However, a good plan if this is your first time is to arrive at the train station and have a walk around the harbour area. This area is mainly full with food stalls. From there, walk along the water to the Kiellinie (harbour promenade), where there is more food, fair ground areas, but also other stalls e.g. by the University of Kiel.

At the end of Kiellinie your main next destination is Schilksee to see some races. We took a bus back to the train station, where we grabbed some lunch and jumped on a bus to Schilksee. This is probably not the best option. We later discovered the ferry: so what you can do is either back track a bit to Reventlou bridge or walk a bit further to Bellevue bridge and take the ferry from there to Schilksee.

Schilksee is the area where most of the sailors are located. It is nowhere near as busy as the inner harbour area. There is also a beach right next to it if a swim is what you are looking for. Having enjoyed Schilksee you can then take the boat or bus back to town, where you can grab some dinner and enjoy the atmosphere.

To know what is going on in Kiel, you can also download the Kieler Woche app to be able to quickly look through events.

When to go

Kieler Woche, as the name implies, is on all week. However, the weekends are the busiest so if you’re going for the atmosphere that is your best bet. We also arrived in Kiel around 10:30 am (it should have rained later and wanted to get in as much as possible before it arrived). In the circumstances, the rain didn’t arrive, so 10:30 was a bit early. Arriving around 11-11:30 is probably a good idea, especially if you want to enjoy the night life of the place.

If you want more information, a good website we found for planning our trip was this one.

Flensburg Maritime Museum

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On the docks of Flensburg, in a beautiful old merchant’s yard, lies a museum dedicated to the maritime heritage of the city, or Flensburger Schiffahrtsmuseum as it is called in German.

Flensburg used to be in the centre of the Duchy of Schleswig that was under the Danish crown from 1460 to 1864. The city had an excellent location for trade being located at the bottom of a fjord with calm waters connected to the Baltic Sea and right on the main trade route (on The Cattle Road) from Viborg in the north to Hamburg in the south. It was the second biggest port in Denmark after Copenhagen.

From the Middle Ages the fjord was a good place to catch herring and after the collapse of the Hansa trade union Flensburg grew to become one of the most important ports in Scandinavia in the 16th century.

In the 18th century sugar and rum became big business for the merchants of the city. Flensburg was also part of the triangle trade where crafted goods were shipped to Africa, slaves to the Danish West Indies and sugar and rum back to Flensburg.

After the war in 1864 Flensburg became Prussian and kept thriving as a mercant harbour until the Kiel Canal open in 1895 and more or less overnight business moved to bigger cities like Copenhagen and Hamburg.

Flensburg’s shipbuilding industry is also covered and it was a big employeer in the area.

The museum tells these stories with model boats, items and pictures from the various periods. However all text in the museum are only offered in German and Danish so if you are not proficient in either of those languages you will miss out on a lot of context.

While we were there a barrel maker, his son and wife were working in the courtyard making a huge barrel. There was also a special room dedicated to diesel engines and modern sailing with a big simulation system for navigating a modern day coaster/tanker.

The ticket was €6 and if you can read the displays (in German or Danish) you can spend 1-1.5 hour here.

First photo by Stadt Flensburg.

Enjoying the Rum Regatta

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The Rum Regatta is a yearly meeting of historic working boats from all over the world that happens every Ascension weekend. It is held in Flensburg Fjord to commemorate the sugar boats docking in Flensburg from the Caribbean in times gone past.

The weekend started on Ascension Thursday when the boats arrived in Sonderborg harbour in the afternoon. It was lovely seeing these big historic boats sailing into the harbour past Sonderborg castle. It really made you want to turn the time back to when such boats regularly sailed in and out of a harbour.

The boats left Sonderborg harbour on Friday morning. The boats were expected to leave the harbour at around 11am, after a captain’s meeting at 10am. However, when we arrived at the harbour at 10:30 with the aim of seeing the exodus start, most of the boats were already out of the harbour, waiting for the Flensburg Fjord Regatta to start at 11:30. Therefore, if you are interested in seeing the boats leave would be wise to be there earlier than 10:30 (maybe 10am?) next year!

The end of the Regatta saw the boats arrive in Flensburg in the afternoon. We went down to Flensburg on Saturday morning once the boats were out participating in the Rum Regatta to soak in the atmosphere and see the boats returning home.

Along the Museumshafen in Flensburg there was a great atmosphere all day long. The Gaffelmarket was on all day with stalls selling shipping-related items, craftsmen working in wood, metal and rope makers working at their craft, and stalls selling food (mainly fish and other sea food), and of course, rum!

Once the boats starting arriving in the harbour at around 3pm it was another great scene as they approached on the horizon. Spotting Sebbe Als, which we helped launch a few weeks ago, keeping its own with the other boats made it that much more special.

The boats were scheduled to leave Flensburg harbour on Sunday morning, seeing the end of the Rum Regatta for this year. A great experience that is surely worth your while to travel to see, either in Sonderborg or in Flensburg. When the boats are in the harbour you can also get the opportunity to look around some of the boats, and some of them also allow the public to join them for a trip out on the water. If historic boats is of interest, you will definitely find something for you at the Rum Regatta!

Rum Regatta 2012

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From the early 18th century Flensburg had a booming trade in sugar and rum. Cane sugar would land from the Danish West Indies (now the US Virgin Islands) to be refined. A side product in this trade was pure rum that would get blended in one of Flensburg’s 40 rum houses earning it the nickname Der Rumstadt (The Rum City).

Once a year Flensburg goes back in time to when the sugar boats from the Caribbean would slide into the harbour with a bounty full of sweetness. From across the world gaff rig boats (with pretty sails) come together for a friendly race in Flensborg Fjord called The Rum Regatta. Up to a 100 of these classic wooden ships will come to this gathering that has been held for the past 33 years.

The programme is not the easiest to read but here is what I think are the highlights:

The event starts off in Sønderborg on Thursday the 17th of May, where the ships should arrive around 3pm after competing in the Herings Regatta.

Friday morning the boats will leave Sønderborg at around 11am to start the Flensborg Fjord Regatta – the race to Flensburg. Here is a video from Sønderborg in 2011

https://youtube.com/watch?v=qOC7zTavRR8%23t%3D1m21s

Friday the Gaffelmarkt starts around 10am and boats will come in to the port throughout the day. At noon small boats will race in the Sail-Service Regatta the harbour itself.

Saturday at 10 the boats leave the pier in Flensburg to start the real Rum Regatta at 11. The regatta should last until 5pm with a ceremony to celebrate the winner at 6.30pm

Sunday the boats will leave but the Gaffelmarkt will be open 10am – 6pm, where the event officially ends.

First two pictures are by Arne List. The one right above is by Benjamin Asmussen.

The mysterious moving coffins

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If you understand Danish you should watch the YouTube clip below where museum director Inge Adriansen tells the story and read more here. If not read on for the English version.

When the first wife of Duke John II (Hertug Hans den Yngre) died in 1586 he created a tomb by the chapel in Sønderborg Castle. The tomb was protected by a beautifully decorated portal that depicts the 14 children he had with his first wife – he had 23 children in all. Behind the door stands the coffins of 46 descendants of the dukes of Sonderborg, Augustenborg and Glücksborg, the last is the line of the current Danish Royal family. The last to go in was duchess Louise Augusta of Augustenborg in 1843.

Photo: Museum Sønderjylland – Sønderborg Slot

The tomb is not open to the public so the video above gives you a rare peak inside. The bodies in the coffins are embalmed and last time they had the tomb of John II open was in 1969 where the coffins were restored. “They are in more or less good condition. As you would after lying around in dry air for 400 years” says Inge Adriansen.

For many years they thought John II was haunting the castle. The coffins did not stay put – they moved around! Once a year the tomb is opened up to get a spring clean and whenever that happened they could see in the dust that the coffins had moved from where they were the year before. Sometimes it had moved 10 cm, sometimes more. The cleaning people were afraid of working in the tomb alone so Inge Adriansen always had to go with them. When they asked her why the coffins had moved she said it was because the dead had hurried to jump back in the coffin when the sun rose. The cleaning personnel didn’t see the joke in that story. Since the castle did not have an explanation they chose to keep quiet about the moving coffins.

They finally figured out what was causing the moving coffins the year they had not moved. Suddenly one year in the 90s the coffins stood exactly were they had stood one year earlier. As Inga Adriansen cycled home from work that day she saw a Booze Ferry (Spritbåd) turn in the harbour and it dawned on her. In the 70s and 80s loads of ferries were stopping in Sønderborg and they docked by the pier right next to the castle. Up to 15 boats would dock every day and they bumped into the pier as they moored so the vibrations carried on into the tomb of the castle causing the coffins to move up to more than 10 cm in a year.

So there you have it. No ghosts were moving the coffins around. But I wonder what other stories the good people of the castle haven’t told us…