Crew's Views from
Andrew Jackson

Back to Andrew Jackson's Table of Contents

Back to Pride of Baltimore II Crew's Views

September 3, 2000

Labor Day. Here we go into Hamburg. We're about twenty miles up the Elbe River waiting to make our big entrance. We found a little anchorage downstream, where we're passing the time making ourselves pretty and catching our breath after the twin traumas of Bremerhaven and the North Sea.

Ah, Bremerhaven. Every five years they have this sailfest thing and they get boats from all over Europe, indeed the world, to cram their little canals. In a city of a hundred and fifty thousand, an estimated two million people viewed about 240 boats, not to mention several marching bands, a hot-air balloon festival, and four bandstands. Our bandstand, about a hundred yards from the boat, featured an Andean pipe band sort of like the Mystic Warriors back in Baltimore harbor, but with a shorter playlist. Every twenty minutes or so, the crew would sing along with "La Bamba" or "Guantanmera." It sure sounds funny to hear people introduce songs like these in German.

In a rare flash of competitive spirit, the crew entered the intercrew shooting competition. They turned out to be pellet guns. We got sixth as a team and Sinker took third place in the singles. Not too shabby. Even though it took place at ten in the morning, they offered "lots of delicious Beck's beer" to wash down the inevitable bratwurst. Some of the more cosmopolitan players took their beers with them right up to the firing line.

What made the biggest impression was definitely der Shtampel. Of these two million people, every blessed one of them had a little Bremenhaven Sail2000 poster and was determined to get the inkstamp of all 240 boats on it. Night and day, rain or shine, whenever a crew member ventured on deck, he was confronted with a wall of proffered posters and a chorus of "Hello? Hello? Shtampel please!" Some of the larger, more experienced boats set up a stand by their gangway and had a crewman sit there all day, doing nothing but geshtampen. A couple of them even charged money for a shtampel. Where two or three boats were rafted up, their designated Shtampmeister would have to geshtamp to or three stamps on each poster. No doubt, for the next five years, every citizen in the Hanseatic league will critically survey the framed Bremerhaven Sail2000 poster over his neighbor's mantelpiece, comparing the number and quality of geshtampen with his own.

Sad to say, our own stamp has seen better days. Sometimes, we'd pound it down where their excited fingers were pointing, and when they viewed the blotchy, muddy finished product, they would shake their heads and shrug sadly. Such a beautiful ship, you could see them thinking, and such a beatup, wornout shtampel. We'll know better at Bremerhaven Sail2005 if we show up.

The Parade of Sail was laborious. We had to wait for hours by the lock while they evaluated the damage that ensued after Pogoria crashed into Stadt Amsterdam. No great damage, says Jan, but plenty of embarrassment. It wouldn't be a boat parade without a collision or two.

Then, we sailed by the Chancellor of Germany, duly fired off our salutes, and ventured into the lumpy, lumpy North Sea.

It was another case of the wind and the water at war, with us in the middle. We had force six, maybe occasionally seven winds, and a river current pushing us the other way, so we had water crashing all over the deck. The potatoes got loose in the galley about 2 AM, and we were still finding them at breakfast.

Well the water's boiling for the pasta en kaese. See you next week.

Andy der Koch

Off Course?
Visit the Nav. Station