---
title: '39C3 Alternative Harbour Cruise'
date: 2025-11-08T09:00:00+01:00
summary: |
    Choose one of three themed harbor cruises through Germany's largest seaport. The “Alternative Harbor Tour” focuses on historical, political, and social contexts that tend to be overlooked on other tours.

    * Harbour Cruise "Women's work in ports and at sea" (German)
    * Harbour Cruise "Pirates!? Glorious scoundrels or outcasts of this world?" (German)
    * Harbour Cruise "Treasure Boxes and Pepper Sacks" – The Port of Hamburg in Unequal Global Trade
---

Choose one of three themed harbor cruises through Germany's largest seaport. The “Alternative Harbor Tour” focuses on historical, political, and social contexts that tend to be overlooked on other tours.

!["HMM Dublin" and Evergreens "Ever Greet"](hafenrundfahrt1.jpg "Wikipedia-User CC BY-SA 4.0 Shotbyp4ul")

![City hall of the world's largest warehouse complex, the Speicherstadt (lit. 'warehouse city')](hafenrundfahrt2.jpg "Wikipedia-User CC BY-SA 3.0 Magnus Manske")

## Harbour Cruise "Treasure Boxes and Pepper Sacks" – The Port of Hamburg in Unequal Global Trade (English)

Where does our coffee come from, where is the world's largest warehouse for Oriental rugs hidden, and why does poverty-stricken Liberia have one of the largest merchant fleets? This tour takes you behind the façades of brick walls and container bridges. It's about coffee and cocoa, soybeans and bananas, jeans and arms.

The tour sheds light on the background of global trade with Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It explains why coffee and cocoa have become so cheap, why scrap metal has become a top export, and who profits from the extremely unequal trade between North and South.

## Harbor tour “Women's work in the harbor and at sea” (German)

Women's work also plays an important role in the history of the port:

Coffee sorters in the Speicherstadt and workers from Poland at the Reiherstieger wool combing factory go on strike for their rights. At the same time, the trafficking of girls at the Amerikahöft in the emigrant barracks experiences a sharp increase: this is what happened in Hamburg at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. These jobs no longer exist today. Many women at sea are organized in the Verband Frauen zur See (Women at Sea Association): former fish workers in the GDR fleet, captains, engineers, women working in the service industry...

Using the example of the oil mill, you will learn about the connection between IMF requirements and migrant women in sex work and other service industries.

## Harbor tour “Pirates!? Glorious scoundrels or outcasts of this world?” (German)

What does piracy have to do with international fish theft off the coast of Somalia? Who is using Somalia's waters as a dumping ground? What is the story behind the weapons on the captured “MS Faina”? Who are the young men from Somalia? And what does “security” mean in the Gulf of Aden? The criminal proceedings before the Hamburg Regional Court dealt with legal issues. In cooperation with the Hamburg group kein mensch ist illegal (no one is illegal), our harbor tour sheds light on the political background.

## Details

* Tours:
  * Day 1 (27.12.) **13:30** in Deutsch: "Women's work in the harbor and at sea" (German)
  * Day 2 (28.12.) **13:30** in Deutsch: "Pirates!?" (German)
  * Day 3 (29.12.) **13:30** in Englisch: "Treasure Boxes and Pepper Sacks" (Englisch)
* Duration: 2 hours (including travel time)
* Language: German; English
* Cost: € 24.00
* Meeting time at Hackertours-Desk: **as mentioned above**.
* Location: Landungsbrücken
* Accessibility: The boat is not accessible.
* Organizer: [Hafengruppe Hamburg](https://www.hafengruppe-hamburg.de/)