Sailing boat Johanna. This miniature in a scale of 1:220 is displayed on deck 9 of the museum.
Johanna is considered by many one of the best restored and preserved Ewers that sails today in our region. This extremely practical and versatile sailing boats originated in the Dutch-Frisian region and became extremely popular in the Lower Elbe already in the late middle ages. In different sizes and design variations, they served almost all possible duties of local civilian shipping one can think of. In her origin, Johanna was a cargo Besan-Ewer. This means she has two masts, while ewers with one mast are named Giek-Ewer.
She was built in 1903 at the shipyard of Johannes Thormählen in Elmshorn. Her original name was Hertha, and she served transporting goods between Hamburg and the marshlands. In the late 1920s she became equipped with a hot-bulb auxiliary engine and lost her masts. Further modifications took more and more her Ewer looks away, but her sturdy steel hull stayed as it was – and is certainly the reason she survived the following decades in which such small boats (18,5 m long ans 4,5 m wide) made less and less money. At some point, her name was changed to Ingeborg. She carried cargo until the tragic flood of 1962: she was moored in the port of Elmshorn during the catastrophe and suffered severe damages. She was then sold, repaired but downgraded to become a barge without propulsion in the port of Glückstadt. In 1973, Egon Heinemann learned of her origins and bought her. He had her restored to her original form by the yard of the Jastram company in the Marshlands of Bergedorf. By 1978 she was a true Besan-Ewer again, and was renamed one last time into Johanna. In 1983 a new owner modified her slightly to offer touristic voyages in the elbe and the Baltic Sea. An association, named today „Freunde des Besan-Ewer Johanna e.V.“ was created to manage her – a duty that lasts to this day. Since 2009 she is owned and taken care of by the Foundation Hamburg Maritim, and she can be booked for day-trips or longer leisure voyages. She is really a pearl in the traditional fleet of our city.
This miniature in a scale of 1:220 is displayed on deck 9 of the museum.