The Boppard is a day trip ship operated by the Dutch shipping company Graaf van Bylant BV, which has been in service on the Middle Rhine between Mainz and Koblenz in the Cologne-Düsseldorf charter since 2004 .
The ship was built in 1996 by the Linz shipyard in Austria for the Ardagger shipping company on the Danube and, on the occasion of Austria's thousand-year existence, was named Ostarrichi as it was first mentioned in a document . Between 1996 and 2001, the owner used the champagne-colored excursion ship in a liner service on the Danube between Linz and Krems or Vienna . As a result of insufficient capacity utilization, the shipowner sold the ship in 2001 for economic reasons to the Dutch Redirij Witjes in Tolkamer (NL). To transfer the ship, the steering position and other superstructures had to be dismantled, as this was necessary to pass under the low bridges of the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal . The new owner renamed the Ostarrichi in Graaf van Bylant IV to. The ship was then anchored on the Rhine near Lobith in the municipality of Rijnwaarden from 2001 and 2004 without verifiable missions . On May 26, 2004, the shipping company signed a seven-year charter contract with the Cologne-Düsseldorf Deutsche Rheinschiffahrt AG, which needed replacements for the two older ships Berlin and Wappen von Mainz in scheduled service on the Middle Rhine route , which were no longer economically viable . The ship was repainted white and renamed Boppard on the occasion of the new operational area .
Equipment and technology
The Boppard is a two-deck passenger ship with a saloon on the closed main deck. The usable area of the ship is around 360 m², the ceiling height is 2.20 m. With normal seating, there is space for 33 passengers on the front main deck 220 and on the rear main deck with a bar. The entire main deck is equipped with air conditioning. The open deck is designed for up to 200 people. The maximum passenger capacity is limited to 400 passengers.