Yesterday we posted about the sinking of the restored pilot schooner Elbe No.5, ex-Wander Bird, following a collision with a container ship near Stade, Germany on the Elbe River. The schooner, launched in 1883, had just completed a $1.7 million renovation. Fortunately while several were injured, none of the 43 passengers and crew died in the collision. An investigation of the incident is ongoing.
The schooner has had a fascinating history. It served as a pilot schooner on the River Elbe for 41 years, carrying pilots to guide ships from the North Sea up the river to the mighty port of Hamburg. She then spent a few years with several owners as a private yacht, named Wandervogel. In 1929, the schooner was purchased by American journalist Warwick Tompkins, who translated the German name to Wander Bird.
After sailing the schooner on the US East Coast, including making several transatlantic passages, Tomkins decided to sail Wander Bird to San Francisco, around Cape Horn in 1936. The short video below documents the remarkable passage, which included Tompkins’ two children, Ann, age 6, and Warwick Jr. (nicknamed Commoridre), age 4, as crew. I invite any fellow parent to attempt not to gasp as they watch the two children climbing out on the bowsprit while under sail, without any sort of harness or safety gear.
What became of the kids? (If they survived they are in their 80/90s now.)
Did they swallow the anchor or carry on the famliy’s maritime lifestyle?
It looks like the younger Warwick spent the rest of his life on the seas.
https://lifeonthewater.us/warwick-tompkins/
“Commodore” Warwick M. Tompkins Jr (the 4-year old boy on the video) and his wife Nancy visited No.5 ELBE very recently this year at the Hvide Sand shipyard in Denmark, where she was terminating an extensive refit just before the terrible collision on the Elbe. He had already visited her in 2004, the year after her recommissioning under her present owning association. His sister Ann, the six year old monkey swinging aloft in the rigging, also visited her former schooner, in 2007. Happy kids, allowed to live without mother-hen rules, without TV, smartphones and school shootings…
Their father, Warwick Tompkins Sr, bought the schooner, then named Wandervogel, in Germany in 1928, restored her in 1929 and made “several” transatlantic passages between then and departing for ‘Frisco by way of Cape Horn in 1936. For “several”, read THIRTEEN.
There is a full-length, 28 min, HD video that can be watched on Vimeo (pay to stream or to buy; there is a “free” trailer):
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/capehornpassage
This video was professionally edited in 2015 and includes some comments by a much older “Commodore”. The soundtrack and running comments are thankfully entirely different from the Youtube version!
Thanks for the wonderful video of this voyage. I can’t wait to show my grandchildren the sea creatures and antics of the youngest crew members!
What a great record of life under sail!
Thirteen Atlantic crossings between 1929 and 1936? That is impressive.
I cringed when young Ann slid down the rigging towards the end of the film.
She must have blistered her hands, I know because I have foolishly done the same thing.