The MARABU glides silently across the Lake Constance on this warm and humid summer afternoon. Hardly a breath of wind can be felt and yet her sails are lightly filled and move her across the calm water as if by magic.
Something decisive has changed since my last visit in October. After years of breaking, hammering and sawing, there is an almost reverent calm over the MARABU just a few weeks before the launch.
Before master boatbuilder Axel retires and leaves the shipyard with the almost completed MARABU, he mounts the new anchor windlass on the foredeck.
Patience is required from everyone involved. Just a year ago, it looked as if MARABU would be handed over to its new owner on June 8, 2023 floating and in a festive ceremony. Now it wasn’t quite enough.
And now it works after all. After a break of a few months, I turn up at the shipyard at just the right moment. It’s mid-May 2023 and today the last of around 75 deck beams is being made.
For weeks now, Central Europe has once again been suffering from climatic conditions. High temperatures and persistent drought have caused the level …
The hull fully planked, the future underwater hull spackled bright white, this is how the MARABU appears to be perched…
Loud hammer blows have been clearly audible for days, even outside the shipyard gate. Staying in the spacious hall is only…
“I try to write in a different style every time”… Work on the hull of MARABU has progressed …
It has been almost three years since MARABU was last worked on, the last two years of which the world has been…
With a little queasy feeling I open the door to Edgar Baur’s steel and metal construction company in Radolfzell shortly before Christmas this Thursday. The environment, the tools, the material, the people…
The players of today’s “boatbuilding Mikado” have already gathered around MARABU in the morning. The goal of the game is quickly explained: …