Jan-Dirk, Motor ship museum in Drochtersen, Germany.
The Jan-Dirk is a motor-powered coastal freighter about 43 meters long that can now be visited as a museum ship. It has a six-cylinder diesel engine with around 250 horsepower and shows the typical structure of a working cargo vessel from that era.
The ship was built in 1949 at a shipyard near Cuxhaven, after wartime destruction had marked all of Europe. In the following decades it carried different names and was only called Jan-Dirk starting in 1974.
The vessel shows how shipping rebuilt itself in Germany after the war and what kinds of ships were important for trade at that time. You can still see on board today the practical solutions that sailors needed for their daily work.
Access to the ship is from Drochtersen, where you can reach it lying at the waterside. Wear comfortable shoes since boarding the vessel and exploring its tight spaces requires some agility.
This ship is the last surviving example of a specific ship type, of which roughly 70 others were built after the war. It preserves the original equipment that was later changed or replaced on other vessels.
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