Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited the former Volkswerft shipyard in Stralsund today. The Federal Republic’s largest fisheries research vessel is currently being built there: the replacement for the now 32-year-old “Walter Herwig III”. The new vessel will be made available to the three marine research institutes of the Thünen Institute – namely the Institute for Sea Fisheries and the Institute for Fisheries Ecology in Bremerhaven, as well as the Institute for Baltic Sea Fisheries in Rostock – for seagoing operations.
The new 90-metre-long vessel will meet the latest environmental standards and produce particularly low levels of underwater noise. Equipped with numerous winches, it is designed not only for all modern fishing methods but also for deep-sea marine research. Thanks to its ice-strengthened hull, it will be able to operate right up to the ice edges. The longest research voyages will take the new “Walther Herwig” regularly to Greenland, the Irminger Sea and the Sargasso Sea, located off the east coast of the USA.
The keel was laid in December 2024 at the BLRT shipyard in Klaipėda, Lithuania. In mid-March 2026, the forward hull section was transported upright on a specialised vessel from Klaipėda to Stralsund. The vessel is operated by the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE), which is also the client for the replacement vessel.
The Federal President’s visit was part of the ‘Local Time Germany’ initiative, under which he regularly relocates his official residence to different parts of the country in order to engage with people on the ground. In Stralsund, he met with the managing directors of the Fassmer shipyard from Berne on the Lower Weser. For several weeks now, the shipyard has once again been using facilities in this historic site to build ships.
The next hull section of the new “Walther Herwig” is expected to arrive from Klaipėda in May. The remaining hull sections will be built in Stralsund, whilst the superstructure is expected to be supplied from elsewhere. The new vessel is due to be available for research by early 2028 at the latest.
