Phoenix / Phönix

The harbour in Greifswald has been close to deserted until recently - a perfect storm of Covid and major building works, on top of the usual seasonal downturn. So it was great to see it on the way up again, buzzing with interesting boats.

The one on the left in particular caught my eye. She was originally called Terje Vigen, after a poem about a Danish man by Ibsen, and is described as a ‘Haikutter’, literally ‘shark cutter’. The cutter is from the two foresails and a mast a bit further back; shark was the name Danish sailers gave for these tenaciously efficient ships.

She was built in Frederikssund, north Denmark, in 1936. Her early years were choppy, first being sunk by a Royal Navy submarine in 1940, and after being repaired, hit a mine a year later. Somehow she reappeared in Lübeck in 1959, spent time in Rügen, and has made her home here in Greifswald since 2015 - now appropriately named Phoenix.