Open Ship Ocean-going tugboat ELBE und HOLLAND (Museum ships)*

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Visitors are invited to the Open Ship event for the ocean-going tugs ELBE and HOLLAND, where they can experience the history of these more than fifty-meter-long ocean-going tugs, built in the 1950s. These ocean-going tugs were among the most powerful salvage tugs of their time. Today, as museum ships, the tugs tell the story of the tough daily work of ocean-going towing and salvage. The ocean-going tug ELBE was commissioned in 1959 and served as a tug for 17 years, then as a pilot vessel. It was subsequently used by Greenpeace as an action vessel. It has been a museum ship since 2002. After its first major overhaul in 1963, the ELBE was the most powerful tug in the world until the commissioning of the tug Zwarte Zee (IV). The salvage tug HOLLAND is now a heritage vessel operated by the Stichting Zeesleepboot Holland (Steelleepboot Holland Foundation) and can be chartered for excursions. The HOLLAND was originally built between 1950 and 1951 by the Ferus Smit shipyard in Foxhol near Groningen for the Doeksen shipping company. In addition to serving as a salvage tug, the vessel was also used as a ferry and excursion boat. Since the HOLLAND eventually no longer met its technical requirements as a salvage tug, it was used as a research vessel from 1974 to 1998. In 1999, the vessel was acquired by the foundation and restored to its original condition as a salvage tug.

*subject to charge