Bulgaria (ship, 1945)
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The Bulgaria was a Bulgarian cargo ship from the group of British Empire ships that was completed in 1946. Initially in service as Empire Flamborough , it drove as Vindeggen from 1946 to 1948 under the Norwegian flag and from 1948 until it was dismantled in 1976 under the Bulgarian flag.
Construction and technical data
The ship was ordered by the Ministry of War Transport from William Pickersgill & Sons Ltd. in Sunderland with the hull number 277 laid on keel and ran on 11 November 1945, the name Empire Flamborough launched . It was completed in March 1946. The ship was 122.22 meters long, 16.33 meters wide and had a draft of 7.01 meters. It was measured with 4191 GRT and 2262 NRT. The load-bearing capacity was 7235 dwt . A three-cylinder triple expansion steam engine from John Brown & Company of Clydebank allowed a speed of 11.0 knots via one screw .
history
British Empire Flamborough and Norwegian Vindeggen
Even before completion for the Ministry of War Transport, it was planned that the shipping company Galbraith, Pembroke & Co Ltd. from London to take over the management of the Empire Flamborough . It doesn't seem to have happened anymore and the ship was soon to be sold: In 1946 the Norwegian Rederiet Vindeggen A / S from Oslo bought the ship for 4.9 million Norwegian kroner and named it Vindeggen when it was completed in March - the fifth ship of the shipping company with this name. The ship only sailed for a Swedish charterer between Scandinavia and South American countries for 12 months , then the shipping company sold the Vindeggen again.
Bulgarian Bulgaria
After the war losses, Bulgaria was also looking for replacements after the Second World War and had formed its own commission in April 1946 to look for suitable ships in Sweden , Norway and Denmark . In Oslo, the Commission became aware of the Vindeggen , which at that time was, however, on its way to South America. Without further assessment, she bought the ship for 6.262 million Norwegian kroner - significantly more than it had cost the previous owner. After the recently acquired Rodina , it was only the second new ship in the Bulgarian merchant fleet after the Second World War .
When it was taken over and commissioned in Trondheim on July 1, 1947, it was given the name Bulgaria , making it the second ship with this name after Bulgaria, which sank in 1943 . Unlike the Rodina was no longer the state shipping company Societe Commerciale de Navigation Bulgare à Vapeur passed since the shipping companies of the country just merged and the name of the upcoming nationalization of Navigation Maritime Bulgare had received. Under the chimney brand of NaviBulgar drove Bulgaria to its scrapping, new home port was Varna .
The first trip under the new flag took them to Soviet Arkhangelsk . This made it the first Bulgarian ship to cross the Arctic Circle . On November 19, 1947, she reached her new homeland for the first time when she entered the port of Burgas . In the next decades, the shipping company used the ship for transports to all ports of the Soviet Union in the Black Sea as well as across the North and Baltic Seas to European countries. In 1960 Bulgaria also transported weapons for the Algerian National Liberation Front , which they brought to Tangier in Morocco through the French blockade . After 30 years of service, the Bulgaria was deleted from the shipping company's fleet list in 1976, and in July 1976 the scrapping work began at Brodospas in Split in Yugoslavia .
literature
- William Harry Mitchell, Leonhard Arthur Sawyer: The Empire Ships: A Record of British-Built and Acquired Merchant Ships During the Second World War , Sea Breezes, Liverpool 1965.
- Bruno Bock, Klaus Bock: The red merchant fleets. The merchant ships of the COMECON countries , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1977, ISBN 3-7822-0143-4 .
Web links
- Empire Flamborough at sunderlandships.com , accessed May 12, 2019
- 1946 DS Vindeggen (4) at skipshistorie.net (Norwegian / English), accessed on May 12, 2019
- Sunderland shipbuilders at searlecanada.org , accessed May 17, 2019
- History of the Vindeggen shipping company at lardex.net (Norwegian), accessed on May 17, 2019
- Seefahrts-Zeitung: 70 years ago the Bulgarian government bought the steamer "Bulgaria" (Bulgarian), accessed on May 12, 2019
- Seefahrts-Zeitung: Ships with the name "Bulgaria" (Bulgarian), accessed on May 12, 2019
- Website of the Bulgarian successor shipping company Navibulgar (Bulgarian / English), accessed on May 12, 2019
- Navibulgar news December 2012 - January 2013: History of the shipping company with many photos (PDF) (Bulgarian), accessed on May 12, 2019
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bock, p. 80, p. 175
- ↑ a b c Empire Flamborough at sunderlandships.com
- ↑ Sunderland Shipbuilders at searlecanada.org
- ↑ History of the shipping company Vindeggen at lardex.net (Norwegian)
- ↑ a b Seefahrts-Zeitung: Ships with the name "Bulgaria"
- ↑ Seefahrts-Zeitung: 70 years ago the Bulgarian government bought the steamer "Bulgaria"
- ↑ Navibulgar news December 2012 - January 2013: History of the shipping company (PDF)