The Albatros – previously Dagmar Larssen, Iris Thy and Esther Lohse – is a three-masted topsail schooner belonging to the “Clipper” club and is used for trips with young people and older sailors. The sailing ship with the relatively high jibboom mainly sails in the German and Danish Baltic Seas. Every year it is moored at Ring-Andersen in Svendborg for winter maintenance work, which is largely carried out on a voluntary basis.
The Albatros was commissioned in 1942 under the name Dagmar Larssen at the Danish shipyard K. A. Tommerup in Hobro (now part of the municipality of Mariagerfjord in North Jutland) as a galleass for freight transport. Her hull was built in oak on oak, i.e. with oakplanks on oak frames. The Dagmar Larssen initially served as a fishing boat in the North Sea. In 1951 the ship was sold and renamed Iris Thy. In 1953 the ship’s sails and masts were reduced and in 1957 the ship went to new owners in Marstal. In 1961 it was sold again and renamed Esther Lohse after the wife of the new owner.
In 1978, the German club “Clipper DJS” bought the Esther Lohse with the support of the city of Bremerhaven and christened her with her current name Albatros. The following year, the ship was extensively restored. Since then, the Albatros has sailed every year from spring to autumn with a volunteer crew for one- and two-week trips, mainly in the German and Danish Baltic Seas. The ship is maintained through club contributions, volunteer work and cruise fees.
During this time, the ship took part in regattas for tall ships several times. Immediately before one such trip – the 1983 Tall Ships’ Races (formerly Cutty Sark Tall Ships’ Races) – a granite boulder became caught in the anchor of the Albatros off the Danish island of Falster. As the anchor could not be freed from the stone even after being hoisted, the ship sailed the entire planned route around Gotland to Karlskrona in Sweden. After the regatta, the boulder was recovered. It was publicly presented to the Swedish king on the market square in Karlskrona with the inscription “Albatros, Tall Ships’ Race 1983” engraved on it. At the Rum Regatta in Flensburg in 1994, the ship won the “Golden Turtle” award as the slowest participant.
The Albatros is operated as a traditional ship. Many details of the ship still remind us of its past from the time before modern motor shipping.
