Freia (ship, 1884)
The Freia was a side paddle steamer that first sailed as a seaside resort ship in the North Sea , then in the Baltic Sea , later as a mail steamer on the forerunner of the so-called royal line Trelleborg - Sassnitz between Sweden and Germany and then again as a seaside resort ship in the Baltic Sea.
Construction and technical data
The ship, with a slightly reclined chimney and two masts, 1884 at Blohm + Voss in Hamburg commissioned and ran there on May 20, 1885 the hull number 44 from the stack . The client had to cancel for financial reasons and so the ship was completed as a "speculation building" by Blohm + Voss on their own account. It was 71.50 m long and 8.20 m wide (about 18 m above the wheel arches ) and measured 683 GRT . The passenger capacity was 150 people. The Freia had a speed of 16 knots , which was unusually high for the time, and therefore earned the nickname "Blohm-Wiesel".
career
Seaside bathing service North Sea
Blohm + Voss used the ship, advertised as the “salon Schnelldampfer”, which even had electric light on board, itself. The maiden voyage on July 18, 1885 went to Heligoland . The Freia then drove passengers from Hamburg via Cuxhaven to Helgoland, Wyk auf Föhr and Norderney . In the winter of 1885/86 the ship was chartered for ferry service between Dover and Ostend and for liner service on the Riviera in the following winters .
Seaside bathing service in Pomerania
In 1889 the young Hamburg entrepreneur Albert Ballin bought the Freia . With this acquisition he founded his Ballins steamship shipping company . In 1890 he bought the side paddle steamer Cuxhaven as a second ship , but took over so that he sold the Freia in 1890 to the Stettin shipping company JF Braeunlich for use in the up-and-coming seaside tourism in Western Pomerania . After conversion, now with 858 GRT and a passenger capacity of 780 people, the Freia with its 18-man crew became one of the shipping company's most famous ships. Shortly after Freia changed hands , Braeunlich and Ballin founded the Stettiner Seebäder shipping company Ballin & Braeunlich , into which Ballin brought its Cuxhaven . Ballin & Braeunlich drove from Stettin via Swinoujscie (as home port ), to Misdroy , Ahlbeck , Heringsdorf and Zinnowitz . Trips to Rügen were also planned . But when the Cuxhaven stranded on the Vinetabank near Zinnowitz on July 27, 1891 and had to be abandoned, with three fatalities, this meant the end of the short collaboration between Braeunlich and Ballin.
Mail steamer
The Freia stayed with Braeunlich and served the seaside resorts on Usedom and Rügen until 1897 . Then it was moved to this route on April 29, 1897 when the new Sassnitz - Trelleborg mail steamer line opened , the forerunner of the Königslinie railway ferry connection established in 1907 . After Sassnitz had a rail connection in 1891 , Braeunlich had the Freia carried out a first test run on June 3, 1891. Their success ultimately led to an agreement between the governments of Sweden and Prussia to set up the line, which was then operated jointly by the Swedish shipping company Sverige-Kontinenten and the Stettiner steamship company JF Braeunlich , renamed in 1896, on the basis of contractual agreements with the relevant government agencies .
Since the Imperator , which Braeunlich had built especially for the new line, was not yet ready, the Freia brought the Swedish guests of honor in its place on April 29, 1897, including Foreign Minister Count Ludvig Vilhelm August Douglas and the former Interior Minister and now General Director of the Swedish Post Office, Julius Edvard von Krusenstjerna, to Sassnitz. She and the corresponding German dignitaries, such as the Prussian “Railway Minister” Karl von Thielen , drove to Trelleborg on the Swedish Rex the following day , accompanied by the German cruiser SMS Gefion . Scheduled operations began on May 1, 1897. In addition to the Freia , which only served as a reserve ship on the mail steamer line from 1902 after the commissioning of the Odin , the Swedish steamers Rex (until they stranded in February 1900), Svea (from 1899, required two daily departures from Sassnitz and Trelleborg) had become) and Nordstjernan (from May 1900) and the Braeunlich-Dampfer Imperator (from 1897), Germania (1899–1902), Odin (from 1902) and Hertha (from 1905) on the line.
After the conclusion of the contract of November 15, 1907 on the establishment of a rail ferry connection between the German Empire and Sweden , the two ferries Prussia and Germany on the royal line were used on the German side in 1909 . So that the mail steamer service of Braeunlich shipping company had become superfluous, and she was financially resigned .
Seaside bathing service in Pomerania
The Freia was back in the seaside resort service and on excursions along the German Baltic Sea coast since 1902. With the beginning of the First World War , the seaside resort and excursion traffic on the Baltic Sea came to a standstill, and the Freia , like the entire fleet of the Braeunlich shipping company, was drafted by the Imperial Navy for war purposes. It served as a tender during the war years. After the war it was returned and drove between Stettin and Swinoujscie until 1929. In 1929 it was sold to the Netherlands for scrapping .
Notes and individual references
- ↑ Paddle steamer Freia (advertising poster)
- ^ Hans Joachim Schröder: Hermann Blohm, founder of the Blohm & Voss shipyard. Hamburg Scientific Foundation. Hamburg University Press, Hamburg, 2011, ISBN 978-3-937816-85-2 , p. 67
- ↑ Torsten Totzke: Blohm & Voss
- ^ German North Sea Coast and Islands, at www.paddlesteamers.info
- ↑ Usedom Island - the Freia side paddle steamer ( Memento of the original from May 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) 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.
- ↑ Braeunlich ships on their way to Scandinavia ( Memento of the original from November 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Braeunlich ships on their way to Scandinavia ( Memento of the original from November 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The salon high-speed steamer Freia ( Memento of the original from November 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) 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.
