In November 2015, the German Navy training ship, Gorch Fock, went into a shipyard for hull repairs. The cost of repairs and refurbishment to the three-masted barque, built in 1958, was budgeted at 9.6 million euros. Repairs were expected to take 17 weeks. Now, over three years later, the ship is still not in service and the final project costs are estimated to reach 135 million euros. Der Spiegel refers to the overruns as a “cost explosion.”

The repairs are reported to include the replating of 80% of the hull, new masts, completely rebuilt mid and upper decks and a new teak deck. 

At various points, the work has been stopped to evaluate options but so far, the German Ministry of Defense has approved continuing the work. The Ministry determined that the cost of a new ship could reach 167 million euros. The Federal Court of Auditors has said that that figure is too high based on other recent new ship construction.

The new Peruvian Navy’s sail training ship, BAP Unión, commissioned in 2016, is larger than the Gorch Foch and had a reported building cost of around 48 million euros in the Peruvian shipyard, Servicios Industriales de la Marina (SIMA).  Likewise, the Indonesian Navy’s sail training ship, KRI Bima Suci, delivered in 2017, is also larger than the Gorch Fock and cost a reported 63 million euros as built in the Freire Shipyards in Vigo, Spain.   

The German Federal Court of Auditors blame the debacle on serious mismanagement by the Navy, the Procurement Office and the Ministry of Defense. There is no clear indication as to when the training ship rebuild will be completed.