Europe (ship, 1953)
 The Europa on the Outer Weser, 1966
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The fourth Europa was a passenger ship operated by North German Lloyd , which initiated the transition from liner shipping to cruise shipping in the 1960s .
history
Svenska America Lines
The ship was commissioned on April 1, 1950 by Svenska Amerika Linien in Gothenburg from the Dutch shipyard Koninklijke Maatschappij "De Schelde" . The Svenska Amerika Linjen designed the Kungsholm for use both as a liner and as a cruise ship. The technical facilities corresponded to the latest state of the art. The ship had a drinking water production system and all cabins were air-conditioned. Like all modern passenger ships, the Kungsholm was also equipped with stabilizers, the fins of which could be extended from the bridge at the push of a button in rough seas, giving the ship a quieter position. The Kungsholm had nine decks and measured 56.5 meters from the keel to the tip of her forward mast. She was launched on October 18, 1952 as Kungsholm and delivered to the client on September 30, 1953. On November 24, 1953, the new ship finally began its maiden voyage from Gothenburg to New York. After around twelve years, the Kungsholm was replaced by a new building of the same name , and the Swedish shipping company sold the ship to Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL), which took it over on October 5, 1965.
North German Lloyd and Hapag-Lloyd
Major modifications were not necessary to turn the 12-year-old former Kungsholm into a Europe that corresponds to Lloyd's ideas . The large lounges on the veranda deck were taken over almost unchanged. The passenger accommodation also remained almost unchanged. Eight new cabins were built on the main deck. The “tavern” on the sports deck was new. As a multi-purpose building, it was a roofed sports facility during the day and could be transformed into a stylish wine bar with just a few movements. The kitchen on the new Europa was completely rebuilt , because on the Kungsholm it was primarily geared to cold Swedish dishes. Now it has been set up according to the special requirements of a German kitchen company and with all the finesse of gastronomic rationalization. The ship's safety and fire-fighting equipment were merely checked and re-approved. The ship, which is divided into eleven watertight compartments, had 16 lifeboats and also carries 16 life rafts. The crew trained in fire protection included three professional firefighters who patrolled the ship day and night.
On January 9, 1966, the third and newest passenger ship of the North German Lloyd, the 21,511 GRT Europe , left the Columbuskaje in Bremerhaven on her maiden voyage. The ship drove with 360 travelers on board around Scotland to Halifax in Canada and from there to New York, from where it made seven cruises to the Caribbean Sea / West Indies from January 22nd . The Europa did not return to Bremerhaven until May 7th. Later she took up the regular North Atlantic service between Bremerhaven and New York, whereby individual cruises were carried out together with Bremen and Hanseatic in the following period . - Board member Richard Bertram from Norddeutscher Lloyd explained that the Bremen-based shipping company sent the new Europe on its way with great confidence. In spite of the increasing competition in the passenger shipping industry and the constantly increasing disproportion between costs and income, Lloyd is convinced that the quality of the ship and the increasing trend towards comfortable recreational voyages will secure a good market position.
The captain was Carl-Otto Efferoth, who had previously been the captain of the NDL passenger ship Berlin . He was under a crew of 405 with a maximum of 785 passengers. 213 members of his crew provided the famous Lloyd service as operating personnel. The 36-year-old Hans Jürgen Breckwoldt was responsible for the entire hotel and catering trade at Europa . As the third most important man after the captain and the chief engineer, he carried the newly created title of ship manager. His work not only relieved the captain, but also made the post of chief paymaster superfluous.
After the NDL first used this fourth Europe from 1966 as a liner from Bremerhaven to New York , it soon became clear that liner shipping no longer had a chance over air traffic . The first cruise to the North Cape took place in 1966 . After that, there were only a few scheduled trips to New York - trips to the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and Scandinavia predominated.
In 1970 Hapag merged with Norddeutscher Lloyd. In 1973 the company withdrew from the business of liner travel, and the Europa was only used for luxury cruises.
In 1981 it was decommissioned after 1,045,000 nautical miles, 34 Atlantic crossings, 315 cruises and a total of 184,000 passengers. The Europa was replaced by a new building of the same name and sold to the Italian Costa Line , which used the ship as the Columbus C under the Panamanian flag.
The end
On July 29, 1984, the Columbus C rammed the starboard side of a pier in Cádiz , which caused severe water ingress. The ship was badly listed and was evacuated, towed into port and moored on the quay. Since the repair of the damage to the hull was considered too time-consuming and, above all, too expensive, the shipping company decided against repairing the now over 30-year-old ship and declared the Columbus C a total loss . The ship was made buoyant and towed to Barcelona, where it arrived on April 2, 1985 and was then scrapped.
Trivia
In 1978, Europe was the location for the episode Didi's first cruise from the television series Nonstop Nonsense .
See also
literature
- Ralf Wittholm (Hrsg.): The new German merchant fleet . Verlag Gerhard Stalling AG, Oldenburg and Hamburg, pp. 16–1976.
- Arnold Kludas (ed.): The ships of the North German Lloyd, 1920 to 1970 . Volume 2, Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Herford, pp. 146–1992.
- Dirk J. Peters (Hrsg.): The North German Lloyd, From Bremen to the world "Global Player" of shipping history . Publisher HM Hauschild GmbH, Bremen 2007, p. 89 u. a.
- Harald Focke : The last maiden voyage of a Bremen liner. 50 years ago the KUNGSHOLM became the EUROPA of Norddeutscher Lloyd . In: Men from Morgenstern , Heimatbund an Elbe and Weser estuary e. V. (Ed.): Niederdeutsches Heimatblatt . No. 792 . Nordsee-Zeitung GmbH, Bremerhaven December 2015, p. 1–2 ( digital copy [PDF; 2.2 MB ; accessed on September 10, 2019]).
Web links
- History of the ship. Retrieved December 3, 2015 .
- The ship's life cycle illustrated in detail. Retrieved December 3, 2015 .
- Image of the ship after the collision in Cadiz. Retrieved December 3, 2015 .
