A historic wooden sailboat that was recently restored at the cost of about 1.7 million dollars sank in Germany's Elbe River on Saturday after colliding with a container ship.

Of the 43 people onboard, five were injured in the incident, one of them severely. The sailboat could not be pulled ashore, with firefighters and other volunteers bringing passengers to safety.

According to police, the No 5 Elbe, whose restoration work had been completed in May and was since being rented out for excursions, collided with the 141-metre-long container ship Astrosprinter at around 2:30 pm (1230 GMT) near Stade, in northern Germany.

Police have not commented on how the collision occurred.

The container ship, which sailed under a Cypriot flag, was heading towards the North Sea at the time of the collision. It initially continued onwards after the incident. Police are conducting an onboard investigation.

The 37-meter-long gaff schooner, which first set sail from the HC Stuelcken shipyard in Hamburg in 1883, is the northern German city's last remaining ship from the wooden shipbuilding era.