Gorch Fock triumphs after half a century: the Five Sisters Race and the quiet power of sail diplomacy

Off the coast of New England, one of the most unusual races in years has played out. Four near-identical sail training ships, built at the same Hamburg yard almost nine decades ago, lined up side by side at the start for the first time in half a century. The Five Sisters Trophy went to Germany's Gorch Fock, repeating her victory of fifty years earlier. For the world of naval sail training it was a remarkable event, and not only in sporting terms. It was also a living history lesson and a reminder of the role tall ships still play in maritime diplomacy.

marine lifestyle worldwide competitive sailing marine tourism and recreation news sailing boating

14 july 2026   |   07:07   |   Source: Gazeta Morska   |   Prepared by: Kamil Kusier   |   Print

fot. USCG

The race was decided in a few hours, but it holds far more than a sporting contest. It carries the turbulent fortunes of four sister ships, half a century between the only two editions of the regatta, and a question about the role training ships play in maritime affairs today. There is a Polish thread in the story too.

Gorch Fock fastest again: Germany wins after 50 years

The race was sailed from New York to Boston on 9 and 10 July 2026. The winner was the Gorch Fock, the sail training ship of the German Navy (Deutsche Marine), beating her three surviving sisters.

In excellent conditions and under full sail, the German ship covered the course in about 7 hours and 30 minutes. She reached Boston roughly 38 minutes ahead of the American Eagle, which took second place. Portugal's Sagres was third, about an hour behind, and Romania's Mircea fourth, some two hours behind the winner. The prize-giving was held on Sunday in Boston Harbour, where the trophy was received by the Gorch Fock's commanding officer, Captain Elmar Bornkessel.

Tellingly, the result exactly repeated the outcome of half a century ago. In the only previous edition of this race, in 1976, the Gorch Fock also triumphed. The silver trophy, crafted by the jeweller Tiffany and donated back in 1976, stays on board the winning ship under the rules of the contest.

Engines off, all sails set: how the race was sailed

The course measured about 60 nautical miles (roughly 111 kilometres) and ran from New York to Boston through the demanding waters around Cape Cod. This is an area covered by a designated precautionary area, the Cape Cod Precautionary Area, a zone of heavy maritime traffic where manoeuvring large vessels calls for particular care.

The rules made the race a pure test of seamanship. Under the regulations, all four ships had to cross the starting line with their engines switched off and all sails fully set, relying on wind power alone. The course involved complex manoeuvres around turning points, testing the coordination and endurance of crews made up largely of cadets.

The race was part of the Sail250 celebrations, a large international gathering of tall ships and naval vessels marking the 250th anniversary of American independence. On 4 July the ships had taken part in a grand parade of sail in New York, and on 8 July the four sisters carried out a joint manoeuvring exercise and sailed in formation. Just before the start they came alongside one another for a commemorative photograph. As the Eagle's crew put it, this was so that moments later they could put years of seamanship to a practical test.

A Tiffany trophy and an echo of 1976

The Five Sisters Trophy has now been contested for only the second time. The first edition took place half a century earlier, in 1976, also in the United States, during the celebrations of the American Bicentennial. The Gorch Fock won on that occasion too, and the silver Tiffany cup donated for the event became a perpetual trophy kept on board the winner.

The context of both races is similar and no coincidence. Sail training ships have for decades been a fixture of great maritime celebrations in the spirit of Operation Sail, and this year's parade in New York drew more than twenty large Class A tall ships from around the world, complemented by an international review of naval fleets. The contest between the four sister barques thus formed part of a far larger spectacle, one in which maritime tradition meets the power of modern navies.

Siblings from Blohm & Voss: five sisters, one design

At the heart of this story is a single, exceptionally successful design. All the competing ships derive from a sail training vessel developed at the Blohm & Voss yard in Hamburg, whose prototype, the first Gorch Fock, entered service in 1933. The design of the three-masted barque proved so sound that it became a model for training ships around the world, including in South America.

The fates of the individual sisters read like a screenplay about a turbulent twentieth century:

• Gorch Fock (1933). The first of the series. Late in the war, in 1945, she was scuttled by her own crew at Stralsund to keep her from the advancing Red Army. The Soviets nonetheless raised her two years later and took her into service as the Tovarishch. In time the ship passed to Ukraine, and in 2003 she returned to Germany. Today, after restoration, she is a museum ship at Stralsund. She was the only sister that did not take part in the race.
• Horst Wessel (1936). Today the American USCGC Eagle. Slightly larger than the prototype, with steel spars. Taken by the United States as reparations after the war, she has trained cadets of the Coast Guard Academy since 1946, with her home port at New London, Connecticut.
• Albert Leo Schlageter (1937). Today Portugal's Sagres. Sold to Brazil after the war, where she sailed as the Guanabara, she was bought by Portugal in 1961. In 2010 she circumnavigated the globe, still serving as a training ship of the Portuguese Navy.
• Mircea (1938). The only sister built not for the German navy but for Romania, and the only one that is a faithful copy of the first Gorch Fock. After a brief Soviet episode she returned to Romania and still sails under her flag today.
• Herbert Norkus (1939). The fifth sister, never completed. She was launched prematurely because the slipway was needed to build submarines, and her unfinished hull, damaged in an air raid in 1945, was eventually scuttled in the Skagerrak.

The current champion is a story in itself. Today's Gorch Fock, sometimes called Gorch Fock II, was built after the war. The West German navy, stripped of all its sail training ships handed over as reparations, decided in 1957 to build a new vessel following the proven plans from the 1930s. Built at Blohm & Voss, she was launched in 1958, with final design changes made after the loss of the sail training ship Pamir. It is this ship that won in both 1976 and 2026.

The family's difficult origins cannot be passed over. The ships were built as training vessels for the pre-war German navy, and some bore names drawn from the pantheon of Nazi propaganda. After the war they were divided among the victors as reparations. Despite that inglorious beginning, they have had an outsized and positive influence on naval sail training worldwide. Today, under a range of allied flags, they sail side by side in a spirit of friendship. It is worth adding that the Gorch Fock herself recently underwent an exceptionally costly, scandal-hit refit, which lends her return to the top of so prestigious a race an added significance.

Diplomacy under sail: why it matters more than ever today

A race between four barques is far more than a sporting event. It is a reminder of a role that sail training ships perform every day: they are floating goodwill ambassadors for their nations. The US Coast Guard itself openly defines the Eagle's mission in two parts. Her primary task is training cadets, but the ship also plays a representational role, visiting foreign ports as a floating ambassador for American diplomacy.

The idea has deep roots. The great gatherings of tall ships in the spirit of Operation Sail grew out of a conviction, one close to President John F. Kennedy, that sailing has the power to unite nations, promote maritime heritage and foster international friendship. Today almost every navy with a large sailing ship uses it in the same way. The same role is played by Portugal's Sagres, Italy's Amerigo Vespucci, Argentina's ARA Libertad, which has covered hundreds of thousands of nautical miles and called at around five hundred ports in dozens of countries, and Peru's BAP Union. All of them combine training the next generation of officers with soft-power diplomacy and the building of a country's image.

Why does this matter so much now? Because the world is entering an era of rearmament and shifting alliances, in which the front pages are taken up by hard subjects: submarine contracts, record defence budgets, reviews of naval fleets. Tall ships do the opposite, though complementary, work. It is quiet, long-term and trust-building. They call at ports, open their decks to the public, boost the economies of host cities and train a generation of officers for whom the sea is a common language across divides. The very image of four ships with a shared, difficult past, now sailing under the flags of allied nations and competing in a friendly race, is a political message stronger than many an official statement.

It is telling that this year's celebrations brought both dimensions together in the same waters. Alongside the parade of sail came an international review of dozens of warships. The soft power of maritime tradition and the hard power of modern fleets met quite literally side by side. That juxtaposition best explains why diplomacy under sail is still needed.

A Gdynia connection: Dar Pomorza from the same yard

For readers in Poland, this story has an especially close dimension. The same Hamburg yard, Blohm & Voss, that built the Gorch Fock family is also the birthplace of the Dar Pomorza. Poland's White Frigate was built in 1909 as the Prinzess Eitel Friedrich, and today, as a museum ship at Kościuszko Square in Gdynia, she shares a Hamburg pedigree with the ships that raced off the coast of New England.

Poland also has its own active ambassador under sail. The Dar Młodzieży, launched in 1982 in Gdańsk as the successor to the Dar Pomorza, has for decades represented the country on the world's seas and at the great gatherings of tall ships, performing exactly the same dual role, training and diplomacy, as the sisters described here.

Finally, diplomacy under sail is no abstraction for the Tricity. Gdynia regularly hosts The Tall Ships Races, the Baltic's largest tall ship event, during which vessels of this class and their international crews are familiar guests. Maritime hospitality, exchange and the building of relationships across borders are part of the city's identity. It is exactly the same language that the Five Sisters race spoke.

More than a race

The Gorch Fock's victory is a striking sporting result, but the real story is bigger. Four ships born of a difficult, shared past, now allies competing in friendship during a great national celebration, are a reminder that the sea can unite as effectively as it can divide. In an age when the headlines belong to hard power, the quiet diplomacy of naval sail training endures, and its language is understood in every port, Gdynia included.

Buy us a coffee, and we’ll invest in great maritime journalism! Support Gazeta Morska and help us sail forward – click here!

Gorch Fock żaglowce szkolne regaty Five Sisters The Tall Ships Races Dar Pomorza

comments

---

enter content

COMMENT

nick

Add the first comment