Georg Büchner (ship)

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Georg Buechner
The Georg Büchner in the city port of Rostock November 2011
The Georg Büchner in the city port of Rostock
November 2011
Ship data
flag BelgiumBelgium Belgium German Democratic Republic
Germany Democratic Republic 1949GDR 
other ship names
  • Charlesville
Ship type Cargo and passenger ship
class Albertville
Callsign DDVR
home port Rostock
Owner DSR
Shipyard J. Cockerill SA, Hoboken
Build number 743
Launch August 12, 1950
Whereabouts Sunk on May 30, 2013
Ship dimensions and crew
length
153.66 m ( Lüa )
width 19.6 m
Draft Max. 8.4 m
displacement 10.901  t
measurement 11,090.091 GRT (new measurements from 1971)
 
crew 140
Machine system
machine 1 × double-acting eight-cylinder two-stroke diesel engine, Burmeister & Wain-Cockerill
Machine
performance 		9,250 PS (6,803 kW)
Top
speed 		17.5 kn (32 km / h)
propeller 1 × fixed propeller
Transport capacities
Load capacity 9,123 dwt
Permitted number of passengers 190 training positions
Others
Registration
numbers 		IMO No: 5068863

The Georg Büchner (ex Charlesville ) was a cargo and training ship of the VEB Deutsche Seereederei (DSR). It was last in the Rostock city harbor and served as a youth hostel and hotel ship .

history

Congo ship

The ship was in 1950 when J. Cockerill SA in Hoboken as Charlesville from the stack and was delivered on February 15, 1951st The combined cargo and passenger ship was the last of five Albertville-class ships and was used by the shipping company Compagnie Maritime Belge (Lloyd Royal) SA , Antwerp , in the liner service between Belgium and the Belgian Congo and Angola .

Training ship in the GDR

The Charlesville went to the VEB Deutsche Seereederei Rostock in Antwerp on July 5, 1967 , and after some modifications in the Mercantile shipyard in Antwerp in July and August, it was put into service in September 1967 as the cargo and training ship Georg Büchner . After new measurements in 1971, the ship was given 11060 BRT / 3831 NRT and a deadweight of 9274 tdw. After operational restructuring, it was managed by VEB Deutfracht / Seereederei from January 1, 1974. She was used in the Cubalco liner service to Cuba and Mexico until 1977 . With the decommissioning on June 7, 1977, the Georg Büchner was handed over to the "Fleet Company School" of the DSR. On June 25, 1977, the ship ran under its own power to Stettin to the “Stocznia Remontowa Gryfia” shipyard, where the conversion to a stationary training ship began one day later. The ship reached the new berth in Rostock - Schmarl on August 31 of the same year. There it was officially inaugurated as a stationary training ship for the shipping company on November 5, 1977.

Use after reunification

On June 18, 1990, the transfer to the Deutsche Seereederei Rostock GmbH took place . Three quarters of a year later, on March 15, 1991, the Hanseatic City of Rostock took over the ship for the symbolic price of one D-Mark in order to save it from being scrapped. It was then used as a stationary training ship and boarding school for the “August Lütgens” company vocational school. In 2003 she was relocated to the Rostock city harbor. The Förderverein Traditionsschiff eV took over the ship from the city, converted it into a hotel ship and used it as a youth hostel until the end of 2012. However, the club got financial problems.

Sale of the ship

At the end of 2012 it became known that the sponsoring association was insolvent and that Georg Büchner was to be sold to cover the debt. Around five million euros would have been necessary to maintain the ship.

The city of Rostock had a right of first refusal for the ship, but refused. The costs allegedly amounted to 750,000 euros , plus follow-up costs of around 25,000 euros per month. Instead, the city found a broker for the association to find a buyer. On December 13, 2012, a purchase agreement was signed with Argent Venture Limited of the Seychelles . The ship was supposed to be sold for 900,000 euros at this point.

In December 2012 it became public that the ship was to be towed to Lithuania in January 2013 . It was feared that the ship would be scrapped there.

According to a report by the Flemish Association for the Rescue of Maritime Cultural Assets "Watererfgoed Vlaanderen" in Antwerp , two Belgian entrepreneurs had also found each other who wanted to take part in the rescue of the last remaining Congo ship. However, they could not raise enough money for the ship. The Rostock Office for Monument Protection was not informed of the sale in advance, although the ship had been on the list of monuments of the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania since October 29, 2004. The buyer from the Seychelles could not guarantee the existence and maintenance of the Georg Büchner as a monument. Mid February 2013 announced the development association in Rostock District Court , the bankruptcy of. An insolvency administrator was appointed to decide on the purchase agreement. He turned to the Office for Monument Protection with the result that the purchase contract was declared invalid.

Due to the lack of funding commitments, the city of Rostock, as the lower monument protection authority, lifted the monument protection for Georg Büchner on May 14, 2013.

Last ride and sinking

On 28 May 2013, was Georg Buchner with a slight list to starboard by the Polish tractor Ajaks dragged with target Klaipeda from the port of Rostock. On the evening of May 30, 2013, the Georg Büchner sank in the Baltic Sea north of the Hela peninsula .

The insolvency administrator of the sponsoring association, Tobias Schulze, had sold the ship to Argent Venture Limited from the Seychelles. The money had been deposited in an escrow account with a notary in Hamburg, and when it was deposited in Rostock, the ship was considered sold. The media reported an alleged insurance sum of four million euros, which was officially contradicted.

The tug Ajaks was chartered by Otto Wulf GmbH & Co. KG from Cuxhaven on behalf of the buyer . At around 10:30 a.m. on May 28, 2013, the Ajaks left Rostock with the Georg Büchner in tow. The Bugsier 16 of the Bugsier-, Reederei- und Bergungs-Gesellschaft in Rostock helped the Ajaks to bring the Georg Büchner out of the port, because the Ajaks did not seem to be agile enough. The ship had previously been declared seaworthy by several experts. Several weak points had been identified, such as cooling water pipes that could have corroded, rusted rivets that could have come loose and the portholes on the waterline. The latter had been burned into the hull when the ship was being used as a residential ship. However, these were meticulously sealed and carefully examined.

The course of the Ajaks was recorded by AIS . It can thus be understood that on the way to the destination port of Memel she stayed close to the Polish coastline, drove south-east and then described a zigzag course at the location of the accident.

According to the report by the Maritime Office of Gdynia , the Vessel Traffic Service Danziger Bucht was informed by the master of the tug Ajaks on May 30 at 18:25 that the Georg Büchner he was towing had a strong list and had started to sink. The position at that time was about seven nautical miles north-northeast of Cape Rozewie . The heeling of the ship allegedly started in the morning. At 7.30 p.m., the shipping service in Gdańsk Bay was informed that the tow lines had been cut due to the lack of buoyancy on the Georg Büchner . At around 8:25 p.m., the ship then sank 8.6 nautical miles from Cape Rozewie. According to the surveying of the Polish vessel Arctowski the correct position on the coordinate has been 54.93367 °  N , 18.52855 °  O coordinates: 54 ° 56 '1.2 "  N , 18 ° 31' 42.8"  O established. The water depth is estimated at 37 meters. The depth of the sea drops, unusual for the otherwise shallow Baltic Sea , by up to 100 meters in the region, which gave additional impetus to speculations about possible insurance fraud. On June 4, 2013, the first pictures of the wreck on the bottom of the Baltic Sea were published on the Internet.

The head of the Maritime Office in Gdynia, Andrzeja Królikowski, stated that the documents for the transfer were incomplete; they would also have identified several owners. The sunken ship had to be lifted because the distance between the water surface and the superstructure was only 14.5 meters. The area was closed to shipping and divers on June 11, 2013. The rescue costs are estimated at 25 million euros .

The Polish commission of inquiry closed its investigation as early as July 2013. In addition, it was stated that the sinking of the Georg Büchner should not be classified as a marine casualty within the meaning of the Imo Casualty Investigation Code , since the Büchner could not be viewed as a seagoing ship. In fact, it was no longer entered in any German shipping register, had no ship certificate and was also treated as a land facility in Rostock. The final report also states that the crew of the Ajaks was not responsible for the sinking: fortification, equipment, speed, route and procedure in the event of the accident were correct. Meanwhile, there were no investigations or proceedings into suspected insurance fraud in Rostock. The city allegedly received 90,000 of the sales proceeds of 900,000 euros.

technology

The Charlesville could carry 248 passengers in one class and had a crew of 140. As Georg Büchner , she was able to take on up to 190 sailor apprentices and 20 trainers. The regular crew consisted of 50 men.

The ship was powered by a two-stroke marine diesel engine with 9250 hp, which was designed as a double-acting diesel engine with eight cylinders. With this performance a speed of up to 17.5  kn was achieved. The main engine was manufactured by the Cockerill Group's engineering works in Seraing under license from Burmeister & Wain , Copenhagen.

  • Aft (2009)

  • Chimney (2009)

  • View of the berth from the west (2010)

  • View of the Bridge (2011)

  • View from the waterside (2011)

  • View of Gehlsdorf (2011)

literature

  • Claus Rothe: German ocean passenger ships. 1919 to 1985 . In: Library of Ship Types . transpress Verlag für Verkehrwesen, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-344-00164-7 , p. 34, p. 147.
  • German shipping companies Volume 23 VEB Deutsche Seereederei Rostock. Author collective Verlag Gert Uwe Detlefsen ISBN 3-928473-81-6 , p. 197/198.
  • Robert Rosentreter : Ship thriller about MS GEORG BÜCHNER , in: Schiff Classic / Schiff & Zeit 78 , No. 2/2013, pp. 58–61.
  • Ostsee-Zeitung Rostock: MS Georg Büchner - from launch to sinking , Verlag Redieck & Schade, Rostock November 1, 2013. p. 112, available from Ostsee-Zeitung

Web links

Commons : Georg Büchner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Jugendherberge Jugendgästeschiff Rostock ( Memento of the original from October 27, 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jugendherberge.de
  2. ↑ a b Chronological listing ID: "5068863". (No longer available online.) In: Miramar Ship Index. Formerly in the original ; Retrieved October 1, 2009 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.miramarshipindex.org.nz  
  3. ↑ a b c End of a traditional ship: The mysterious sinking of the "Georg Büchner". In: Spiegel Online. June 7, 2013, accessed June 8, 2013 .
  4. ↑ NDR.de of December 11, 2012, Georg Büchner is scrapped, accessed on January 6, 2013
  5. ^ NDR.de of December 30, 2012, rescue for the Georg Büchner ? accessed on January 6, 2013
  6. ↑ Rescue for the Congo ship in sight ( Memento of the original from January 27, 2013 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. FLANDERNINFO.BE, accessed January 25, 2013  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.deredactie.be
  7. ^ A b "Georg Büchner": Farewell to Rostock. In: NDR.de. May 28, 2013, archived from the original on June 7, 2013 ; Retrieved May 28, 2013 .
  8. ↑ MS Georg Büchner approved for scrapping. (No longer available online.) In: rostock.de. May 14, 2013, formerly in the original ; Retrieved June 3, 2013 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / rathaus.rostock.de  
  9. ↑ Now the British are protesting too. (No longer available online.) In: das-ist-rostock.de. May 24, 2013, archived from the original on June 9, 2013 ; Retrieved June 3, 2013 . 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.das-ist-rostock.de
  10. ↑ Eckhard-Herbert Arndt: "Georg Büchner" begins the last journey . In: Daily port report of May 28, 2013, p. 15
  11. ^ Polish Navigational Warning No 089, June 1, 2013 10:03 PM UTC
  12. ^ Otto Wulf GmbH & Co. KG
  13. ↑ esys.org (June 2, 2013): Tim Schwabedissen: Guesswork on the sinking of the "Georg Büchner"
  14. ↑ das-ist-rostock.de (May 31, 2013): Renate Gundlach: Abandoned after tipping for hours . ( Memento from June 8, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  15. ↑ Info ( Memento from June 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) on ndr.de
  16. ^ Georg Büchner - Galeria Podwodna. In: alpha-divers.pl. June 4, 2013, accessed June 4, 2013 .
  17. ^ Poles are looking for the owner of the "Georg Büchner". in: Ostsee-Zeitung from June 11, 2013.
  18. ↑ Maritime Administration forbids shipping on the “Büchner” wreck. in: Ostsee-Zeitung from June 12, 2013.
  19. ↑ The sea rests quietly over the Georg Büchner ( Memento of the original from June 5, 2014 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. on das-ist-rostock.de  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.das-ist-rostock.de
  20. ↑ The port captain speaks Tacheles ( Memento of the original from May 27, 2014 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. on das-ist-rostock.de  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.das-ist-rostock.de