Elbe (ship, 1959)

Elbe

The Elbe in Maassluis

Ship data flag  Netherlands other ship names Maryland Gondwana Greenpeace Ship type Deep sea tug Callsign PDWN Owner Stichting Maritieme Collectie Rijnmond Shipyard J. & K. Smit's Scheepswerven NV Launch October 19, 1958

Ship dimensions and crew length 58.05 m ( Lüa ) width 11.22 m Draft Max. 4.45 m   crew 8 (at least)

Machine system machine 2 × Smit-MAN 2 × 2000 PS RB 666, now: 1720 PS each at 275 rpm Machine performance 3,440 hp (2,530 kW) Top speed 10 kn (19 km / h)

Others IMO no. 5100427

The Elbe is a Dutch deep-sea tug . The ship was put into service in 1959 and served as a tug for 17 years before being used by Greenpeace as an action ship. It has been a museum ship since 2002. After the first general overhaul in 1963, the Elbe was the most powerful tug in the world until the Zwarte Zee (IV) was commissioned . For day trips, the ship can take 80 passengers.

history

Deep sea tug

The Smit Internationale in Rotterdam put the deep-sea tug into service on February 24, 1959 and named it Elbe . The first job under the command of Captain A. Poot was to tow the passenger ship Victoria from Vlissingen to Rotterdam for ten hours . Larger orders followed later: the German tanker Richard Kaselowssky , whose crankshaft had broken, was pulled into the port of Hamburg from Faial da Terra in the Azores . In 1963, the rated output of the two marine diesel engines was increased to 1780 hp each through improvements to the exhaust gas turbines and the installation of charge air coolers .

Pilot ship

Smit sold the ship to the pilots of the Pilots Association of Maryland in Baltimore in 1976 , who converted it into a pilot boat , renamed it Maryland and ran it under the US flag.

Action ship

In 1985 the Elbe was taken over by Greenpeace International as a replacement ship for the sunk Rainbow Warrior , first renamed in Gondwana and three weeks later as Greenpeace .

as Greenpeace 1989

The ocean-going ship was redesigned according to the new tasks and expanded with hydraulic cranes for lowering inflatable boats and a helicopter landing deck. During a protest against missile tests of medium-range missiles of the type UGM-133 Trident II on December 4, 1989, the submarine rescue ship USS Kittiwake (ASR-13) of the United States Navy rammed two large holes in the port side of the action ship. In October 1990, MV Greenpeace drove to the Arctic Ocean to protest against Russian nuclear tests on the double island of Novaya Zemlya , where it was seized by the Russian naval fleet. In 1990 the ship was transferred to the Rubicon Foundation in Amsterdam and continued to operate under the Dutch flag. In February 2002 the MV Greenpeace was replaced by the former fire boat Esperanza .

Museum ship

On January 4, 2002, the ship was transferred to the Port Museum in Rotterdam, restored to its original condition as a museum ship and renamed again in its original name Elbe . It is managed by the Stichting Maritieme Collectie Rijnmond in Rotterdam. On July 30, 2004, the Elbe sank after being rammed by the heavy lift carrier Fairpartner at the level of the engine room . During the restoration that followed, it was sabotaged again on October 27, 2004. On February 12, 2005, the ship returned to its original home port in Maassluis , where restoration continued. In a dry dock , the hull got its original paintwork back in 2009 and a bow thruster was added. In 2012, the Elbe drove independently for the first time since 2004. On March 22, 2014, the technical examination at sea was held. The first trip with passengers took place on April 6, 2014, and the first trip abroad as a restored tugboat on May 6, 2014 for the port birthday of Hamburg. On August 19, 2015, the ship took part in Sail Amsterdam .

literature

• Yvonne JAT Maij-van Walsum: Zeesleper Elbe. Van woeste zeeën naar rustiger vaarwater. Odoorn: Lanasta, 2019, ISBN 978-90-8616-084-6 . (Dutch)

Web links

Commons : Elbe  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Homepage Zeesleper Elbe .

Individual evidence

1. ^ MV Greenpeace - From Pole to Pole . In: Greenpeace.de .
2. ↑ 25 years Greenpeace: Chronicle of a round thing 1971-96 Part I . In: Greenpeace magazine . No.  03 , 1996, ISSN  1611-3462 ( greenpeace-magazin.de ).
3. ↑ United Press International : Navy Bumps Protest Boat at Trident II Test. In: Los Angeles Times . December 4, 1989, accessed April 13, 2017 .  
4. ↑ Portrait of the Elbe. (PDF) (No longer available online.) In: hamburg.de. Archived from the original on April 13, 2017 ; accessed on April 13, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.   
5. ↑ Where the peace is still cold. In: Die Zeit , No. 43/1990. (paid). October 19, 1990, accessed July 30, 2020 .