Columbia (ship, 1889)
 as Rapido with the Spanish squadron in Port Said in 1898
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The Columbia was a fast steamer of the Hamburg-American Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG). She had a sister ship , the Augusta Victoria .
In the service of HAPAG
Columbia , which was floated in dry dock at Laird Brothers in Liverpool on February 27, 1889 , was handed over to HAPAG in June 1889 and began her maiden voyage from Hamburg via Southampton to New York on July 18 . She was the second HAPAG twin-screw high-speed steamer on the North Atlantic.
From August 1892 the HAPAG ships had a problem because of the cholera epidemic in Hamburg and the strict quarantine regulations in New York. The express steamers ran until the end of the 1892 season only to Southampton. When cholera cases increased again briefly in September 1893, Wilhelmshaven became the end of the traffic for the express steamers for a while.
The Columbia and previously from Vulcan delivered in Szczecin Augusta Victoria were in service reliably and quickly. However, there was not enough public interest in crossing the North Atlantic in winter. The express steamers were therefore launched in their first winter. From January 22nd to March 21st, 1891, the Augusta Victoria offered a Mediterranean cruise to and from Cuxhaven. These “pleasure trips” in winter to the Mediterranean, in midsummer north to Spitzbergen or from 1896 also to the West Indies became an integral part of HAPAG's range of services alongside regular services. The Columbia was also used. From July 20 to August 9, 1895, she made a Nordland voyage to Spitzbergen . In 1896 she carried out HAPAG's first West India cruise. On January 8, 1896, she left Genoa and ran via Algiers , Gibraltar and Funchal to New York. Several Americans got on there. She visited 14 ports in the West Indies, then returned to New York and then ran to Hamburg, where she arrived on March 14, 1896. On this trip it was possible to book individual sections.
The North German Lloyd (NDL) used its express steamers from Mediterranean ports to New York in winter. HAPAG joined this in 1893 and Columbia was the first HAPAG express steamer to sail on the route Genoa - Naples - Gibraltar - New York on December 19, 1893 . It was also used on this route in the following winters. HAPAG and NDL worked together as partners on this route from the winter of 1894 to the winter of 1900/1901.
In July 1895 the Columbia and her sister ship Augusta Victoria were used to transport the guests of honor at the opening of the Kiel Canal . On October 14, 1897, she drove for the last time from Hamburg via Southampton to New York.
Spanish auxiliary cruiser Rapido
On April 8, 1898, HAPAG sold the Columbia and the Normannia to Spain, where they were to be used as auxiliary cruisers in the Spanish-American War . The Columbia came on April 20 as auxiliary cruiser Rapido in the service of the Spanish Navy and was assigned to the relief squadron for the Philippines (liner Pelayo , cruiser Emperador Carlos V , the auxiliary cruiser Patriota and Rapido , three destroyers and two transporters). With this she drove on June 16, 1898 from Cadiz to Port Said (July 5), where coal was refused to the squadron and so it was hardly possible to continue. In the meantime the Americans had also won the naval battle of Santiago de Cuba , which made the Spaniards fearful of activities towards Europe. The squadron was recalled, returned on July 11, 1898, and was disbanded on July 25.
The Rapido was equipped to transport marines to the Spanish Sahara colony . This was to prevent the Americans from setting up a base there or on the Canary Islands. The war ended quickly, however, and the Rapido was used to transport Spanish troops back home. On November 5, 1898, she took over soldiers for the troubled colony and brought them to the Canary Islands. From there she left for Cuba on the 27th. On January 1, 1899, the return journey began with troops and other ships to be returned. These were all in poor condition and some had to be towed. So the convoy first called at Fort-de-France , where some of the ships were sold. The return journey of the two former HAPAG express steamers and auxiliary cruisers Patriota and Rapido as well as eight other naval ships between 1030 t and 300 t did not begin until two months later, after more ships had arrived. The two auxiliary cruisers often had to take their companions in tow. The Rapido did not return to Cadiz until April 1st, 1899 .
Back in the service of HAPAG
On July 6, 1899, HAPAG was able to buy back its Columbia cheaply and on August 31, it resumed service on the North Atlantic route from Hamburg via Southampton and Cherbourg to New York. The last start on this route was on October 9, 1902. In 1904, the Columbia was still in service for a tour when it started on April 3 in Naples via Genoa to New York. During this last voyage, the ship was sold again.
Russian auxiliary cruiser Terek
The Russo-Japanese War once again created a need for fast auxiliary warships. Russia acquired four older twin screw high-speed steamers from Germany : the Empress Maria Theresia of the NDL and the Auguste Victoria , the Columbia and the Fürst Bismarck of the HAPAG. The official purchaser of Columbia was the Russian Voluntary Fleet . The ship arrived as the last of the express steamers purchased in Libau and was renamed Terek . The conversion started immediately. As on the other ships, the space for the tween deck passengers was converted into additional coal bunkers and hatches were cut for a coal takeover at sea. Two 12 cm L / 45 canet guns, four 7.5 cm L / 50 canet guns, eight 5.7 cm Hotchkiss guns and two machine guns were installed as armament . On August 12, the Terek set sail for a control voyage into the Atlantic, which was actually planned together with the Kuban ex Auguste Victoria . On this day the auxiliary cruiser Ural returned from such a voyage and the auxiliary cruiser Don , which was still in Spain, was also supposed to march back. The Terek reached Lisbon on August 22nd , where it took care of itself. In the course of her trip, she went to Vigo on September 1st and Lisbon again on September 13th. She returned to Libau on September 24th. At 9190 nautical miles she had carried out the longest inspection voyage of the auxiliary cruisers and searched 15 ships for material destined for Japan. None of the ships were held longer.
The Terek was prepared for use with the 2nd Pacific Squadron and was the last ship to follow on November 18. The Kuban had already left 20 days before her, the Ural four days earlier. She reached the planned supply point in Dakar on December 3, 3 or 6 days after the other auxiliary cruisers. At the beginning of January 1905, all three joined the squadron off Madagascar and were assigned to its reconnaissance group. In March in the area of Singapore there were first unrest on board, which could still be calmed down.
On May 10, the Terek was detached from the squadron before the sea battle at Tsushima in order to control the sea routes to Japan. The Terek controlled a large number of ships and sank two. On June 5, she sank the British Ikhona (5252 GRT, 1900) about 150 nm off Hong Kong with a load of rice on the way from Rangoon to Yokohama . At the end of June the Danish steamer Prinsesse Marie (5416 BRT, 1902) was sunk, on which goods were discovered that appeared to be of military use.
Knowing the defeat of the Russian fleet, the Terek went further south and reached Tandjong Priok / Batavia on June 16 . In the time allotted by the Dutch authorities, however, she was unable to take over enough coal to reach a safe neutral destination, and so the auxiliary cruiser was interned on June 30th. After the peace treaty he ran to Vladivostok in mid-October 1905 , where he was disarmed and listed as a transporter from February 21st. In April 1906, the ship returned to Libau via Saigon , Djibouti and Vigo, where it arrived again on July 8th after having covered 50,080 nautical miles. Plans to bring the ship into civilian use came to nothing. On December 1, the Terek was removed from the list of warships and broken up in Preston in 1907 .
literature
- Bernhard Gomm: The Russian Warships 1856-1917, Volume VI: Auxiliary Cruisers, Avisos, Yachts, Appendix: The Voluntary Fleet. Self-published, Wiesbaden 1996.
- Arnold Kludas : The German Schnelldampfer II. The "Augusta Victoria" class. In: German Shipping Archive. Vol. 4, 1981, ISSN 0343-3668 , pp. 93-108.
- Arnold Kludas : German ocean passenger ships. 1850 to 1895. Transpress, Berlin 1983, pp. 82-83 ( Library of Ship Types 1).
- Arnold Kludas : pleasure trips at sea. A history of the German cruise. Volume 1: 1889-1939. Convent Verlag, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-934613-21-7 , pp. 21-28 ( writings of the German Maritime Museum 55).
- Albert A. Nofi: The Spanish-American War, 1898. Combined Books, Conshohocken PA 1996, ISBN 0-938289-57-8 .
Web links
- Report on ship with travel data and a. (English)
- Johannes Gerhardt: Albert Ballin , Hamburg University Press, Hamburg 2009, as an online edition
- The Spanish-American War Centennial Website: Auxiliary cruiser Rapido
- The Spanish-American War Centennial Website: Pelayo
- Department of the Navy: Naval Historical Center: Online Library of Selected Images: Spanish Navy Ships: Rapido (Auxiliary Cruiser, 1898)
- Russian article on the curriculum vitae and the use as an auxiliary cruiser
Footnotes
- ^ Department of the Navy: Naval Historical Center: Online Library of Selected Images: Spanish Navy Ships: Rapido (Auxiliary Cruiser, 1898)
- ^ The Spanish-American War Centennial Website: Pelayo
- ↑ Marques de la Ensenada largest repatriated ship
- ↑ Vasco Nunez De Balboa and her sister boat Hernan Cortes were the smallest participants on the return trip
- ^ 2 postcards from Columbia
- ^ British claims for compensation
- ↑ Terek sinks Danish ship