Date Added: 22 November 2017
To find a project with clear reference to Bremen, the choice fell on a Hanseatic cog, more precisely on the replica "Roland von Bremen". A cog is a type of ship that first appeared in the 10th century, and was widely used from around the 12th century on. Cogs were clinker-built, generally of oak. This vessel was fitted with a single mast and a square-rigged single sail. They ranged from about 15 to 25 meters (49 to 82 ft) in length with a beam of 5 to 8 meters (16 to 26 ft), and the largest cog ships could carry up to about 200 tons. So a cog is a rather plump vessel, as a bottle ship it has to be divided vertically, otherwise the almost twice as wide hull would not fit through the bottle neck opening. The fact that it has only one mast made things much easier. The four shrouds on the port side remained loose, so that the two halves could still be separated in order to walk one after the other into the bottle. A 0.5-litre gin bottle from the Schultz distillery in Berlin served as a container for the 1:250 scale cog. Three attempts were necessary to reunite the divided hull in the bottle. Now the cog has anchored in front of the Bremer Schlachte, the boulevard at the riverside of Schultz hometown.
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