Artevelde (ship, 1959)
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The Artevelde was a Belgian car and passenger ferry , which later sailed under the Greek flag in the Aegean Sea and finally caught fire and sank during the conversion to a cruise ship .
Construction and technical data
The ship ( IMO number 5025586) was 1958-59 with the hull number 794 on the wharf of Cockerill-Ougrée in Hoboken on the Scheldt built and ran there on February 1, 1959 from the stack . It was 116.85 m long and 15.96 wide, had a draft of 3.89 m , was measured with 2812 GRT and 1417 NRT and had a deadweight of 775 tdw . The ship could carry 985 passengers (135 of them in beds), 160 cars and seven buses . Two 12-cylinder two-stroke marine diesel engines of the type 12MD-510 from Sulzer developed 7061 kW and allowed a cruising speed of 21 knots .
history
Channel ferry
The Artevelde was delivered on May 28, 1958 to the state Bestuur van het Zeewezen / Administration de la Marine (Belgian Maritime Administration; Belgian Marine) and made her maiden voyage across the English Channel on June 2, 1959 on the Ostend - Dover route . She drove on this route until 1974, with three major accidents :
- On November 14, 1967, the ferry collided in thick fog with the Danish motor freighter Alameda and suffered severe damage to the bridge and forecastle . After repairs at Beliard & Crighton in Antwerp , it was back on the road on December 13, 1967.
- On October 7, 1970, when leaving Dover, the Artevelde collided with the incoming British 137-GRT Kümo Seacon from Sea & Continental Waterways Transport Ltd., London, about 1200 m from the port entrance , which then capsized and sank; his four-man crew was able to save themselves in a rubber dinghy. After six weeks in the shipyard to repair the damage to her bow, the Artevelde resumed its service.
- On August 23, 1974, the Artevelde collided with pier 1 in Dover Eastern Docks, which in turn made a lengthy repair necessary.
After that, the ship was used as a training ship for the Hogere Zeevaartschool (Higher Maritime School) in Antwerp for four weeks and then launched as a reserve ship in 1975 . From June 30th to September 25th 1976 it was used again in the ferry service, chartered by Sealink UK for the Dover - Calais route . The last return trip across the English Channel was on September 26th.
Aegean ferry
The Artevelde was sold to the Greek shipping company Agapitos Brothers from Piraeus on October 3, 1976 and renamed Aigaion ( Αιγαίων ) and ran from Ostend to Greece on November 6, 1976. In June 1977 it began its service between Piraeus and the Greek islands of Kos and Rhodes , with departures on Mondays and Wednesdays from Piraeus via Paros , Naxos and Kalymnos to Kos and Rhodes, and Saturdays from Piraeus via Tinos and Mykonos to Kos and Rhodes. Already in November 1977 it was moved to the Piraeus - Syros - Tinos - Mykonos - Ikaria - Samos line. In April 1978 this route was changed to Piraeus - Syros - Paros - Naxos - Ikaria - Samos and from January 1979 to mid-1989 only Paros was called on the journey to and from Ikaria and Samos. On November 13, 1983, the Aigaion ran aground off Paros, suffered considerable water ingress in the engine room and had to be repaired in Piraeus from December 1983 to January 1984.
In June 1989 the ship was transferred to the lucrative Cyclades line Piraeus - Paros - Naxos - Ios - Santorini . It stayed that way when the shipping company was split into Agapitos Lines and Agapitos Express Ferries in October 1992, with Aigaion joining the latter. In November 1993 the ship, which had reached the age limit for ferries of 35 years, was laid up in Perama ; its replacement was the Express Santorini , the 1974 SNCF's former Chartres .
The End
In 1995 the ship was hauled first to Elefsina and finally to Drapetsona . There it was to be converted into a day trip ship at the Vasiliadis shipyard ; the Agapitos Express Ferries planned to use the ship under the new name Kallisti on the Heraklion - Santorin route . During the work, the ship caught fire on February 19, 1996. When this could not be brought under control, the ship was towed from the quay into the Saronic Gulf . As a result of an incorrect tug maneuver, the ship capsized and sank near the small island of Atalanti between Psyttalia and Salamis .
Web links
- Dover Ferry Photos: MV Artevelde - past and present
- Artevelde (M / V) (1958–1976), near Oostende, de stad ann zee
- M / S Artevelde, at www.ffektaomfartyg.se
- Agapitos Express Ferries, at Adriatic and Aegean Ferries
Footnotes
- ↑ Belgian Marine joined the SeaLink consortium of British ( British Rail / Sealink UK), French ( SNCF ), Dutch ( Stoomvaart Maatschappij Zeeland [SMZ]) and Belgian canal ferry operators in November 1970 , and on November 1, 1971 it changed its name to director voor Maritiem Transport (RMT).
- ↑ 11,002 BRT, IMO 6709995, East-Asiatic Co., Copenhagen.
- ↑ http://www.seacongroup.co.uk/index.html
- ↑ The wreck of the Seacon drifted in the course of the next few days until the eastern approach to the port of Dover, which finally had to be closed. Only on December 12th could the wreck be recovered by a floating crane. The ship was later repaired and came back underway as the Sea Trent . (Anthony Lane: Front Line Harbor: A History of the Port of Dover . Amberley Publishing Limited, Stroud, Gloucestershire 2011, ISBN 978-1-4456-2008-4 , pp. 179–180 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search). )
- ^ Agapitos Express Ferries, at Adriatic and Aegean Ferries
- ^ Agapitos Express Ferries, at Adriatic and Aegean Ferries