Ice fox (ship)

Ice fox

Ship data flag  Germany other ship names Icebreaker No.1 Comité Ship type Icebreaker home port Hamburg Shipyard Reiherstieg Schiffswerft & Maschinenfabrik, Hamburg Build number 230 Commissioning December 8, 1871 Decommissioning 1956

Ship dimensions and crew length 40.50 m ( Lüa ) width 9.75 m Draft Max. 3.75 m displacement 570 t

Machine system machine 1 × double expansion steam engine Machine performance 480 kW (653 hp) Top speed 10.5 kn (19 km / h) propeller 1 × fixed propeller

The Eisfuchs was the first German icebreaker and is also considered to be the world's first ship to use the essential construction principles of vehicles of this type in its construction.

history

After the Kronstadt merchant Michail Britnew had the tugboat pilot he operated converted into the first successful modern icebreaker, this led to keen interest in some Baltic Sea countries, but initially there were no direct imitators.

In the ice winter of 1869/70, however, the freezing of nine steamers on the Elbe led to an attempt to acquire the pilot for Hamburg, but this failed. It was not until the subsequent ice winter, which was again considerably more severe, that a new attempt was made to build the first German ice breaker in Hamburg. On February 16, 1871, representatives of several authorities and societies met in Hamburg to found the Comité for the removal of future ice barriers on the Elbe . First of all, a competition was announced in which 24 designs were submitted. The winning design came from the designer Carl Ferdinand Steinhaus (1826–1899), who presumably had adopted the basic ideas of his business partner Johann Heinrich Grell (1824–1898). The Hamburg Reiherstieg Schiffswerfte & Maschinenfabrik took over the construction of the ship .

The ship was the first real icebreaker in Europe with a spoon-shaped curved bow with which the ship could push itself onto the ice and then break the ice under its own weight. The concept was so successful that all other icebreakers in the Port of Hamburg were built according to this model.

On December 8, 1871, the committee took over the ship, which had been named Comité . The HAPAG who had worn a portion of the construction costs, initially took over the ship management, but announced after disputes with the Committee on the use of the ship the contract. The committee then made several attempts to bring the ship under the ownership of the Hamburg Senate , but it was not until the winter of 1875/76 that the committee was convinced of the usefulness of the committee and took over the ship as icebreaker No. 1 . As such, the ship was used on the Elbe from Hamburg to the mouth. Later the name changed again to Eisfuchs . The ship operated under this name until 1956, when it was decommissioned and scrapped.

literature

• Bernd Oesterle: Eisbrecher from all over the world , Transpress Verlag, Berlin, 1988, ISBN 3-344-00284-8

Web links

• Report at Arcticportal (English; PDF; 44 kB)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Christian Ostersehlte: Steinhaus, Carl Ferdinand . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 6 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8353-1025-4 , p. 323 .