The cargo ship Kap Arkona was completed shortly after the Second World War as one of the first Swedish post-war buildings. The launch took place on May 27, 1946 at the Kockums M / V shipyard in Malmö . With the name BO Börjesson it was handed over to Rederi A / B Activ Mgr. Stig Gorthon based in Helsingborg in December 1946 . It was the second ship in a series of four ships with almost identical dimensions and technical data.
In the course of the hobby horse movement that had started in the GDR , the ship was purchased for 210,000 pounds in October 1958 and added to the fleet of the German shipping company Rostock on November 12 of the same year under the name Kap Arkona . It is worth mentioning the typical appearance of the Scandinavian buildings of the time with the teak-clad bridge fronts. The ship was mainly used in the Levant traffic.
The downfall
The Cape Arkona was on the way from Rostock via Antwerp to Latakia in Syria . On January 19, 1964, the ship ran out of the port of Antwerp in fog, which became increasingly thick. East of the lightship West-Hinder III ( 51 ° 23 ′ 0 ″ N , 2 ° 26 ′ 20 ″ E ), the collision with the Norwegian motor tanker Ida Knudsen (20,592 GRT / year of construction 1958) occurred at 8:49 a.m. The bow of the much larger tanker had drilled into the starboard side of Cape Arkona, which was immediately listed. The radio operator reported SOS and the crew of 30 went into the lifeboats on the port side. After about 20 minutes, a Belgian pilot boat rescued the crew; no one was missing or injured. The Kap Arkona and its cargo sank at 9:34 a.m. Meanwhile , a fire had broken out on the Ida Knudsen , but it could be extinguished. She drove on to the port of Antwerp on her own. The wreck was not cleared until the fall of 1966.
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More ships of the Hobby Horse Movement
Cargo ship Stubbenkammer (date of transfer to the DSR: December 17, 1958)
German shipping companies Volume 23 VEB Deutsche Seereederei Rostock Author collective Verlag Gert Uwe Detlefsen ISBN 3-928473-81-6
Gerd Peters: The purchase of old tonnage ships for the GDR merchant fleet. Poetry and truth about the hobby horse movement. In: Full ahead. For sailors and friends of seafaring. Issue No. 12, May 2007, pp. 4/5. Type IV driving people eV (publisher), Rostock 2007
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