History of inland navigation

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Painter of the burial chamber of Ipi: fisherman with boat, around 1298–1235 BC Chr.
Theodor de Bry : Indians making dugout canoes
Lithograph: Mississippi Flotilla during the Battle of Vicksburg, 1863
Dutch raft on the Rhine, model
Model of the chain ship Gustav Zeuner

In contrast to the history of seafaring, the history of inland shipping includes the history of inland sea ​​shipping , river shipping and canal shipping. As early as 20,000 BC Remains of fishing gear can be detected in the inland waters. Inland fishing with fishing boats and transport with cargo ships on inland waters accounted for the major part of inland navigation .

rafting

First, rafts and dugouts were used. Around the year 50 BC The transport of people and goods on the Rhine with rafts is mentioned. The heyday of rafting was the 17th century. At that time, large quantities of wood were transported to Holland. The so-called Dutch rafts were up to 500 m long, 70 m wide and had a draft of up to 2.40 m. They consisted of five layers of wood. The raft consisted of a fixed piece that was flexibly connected with several knee pieces. The crew, which numbered up to 500 people, was accommodated in huts on board and was fed there. From 1860 small steam tugs were used to maintain course, and so the crew was reduced to about 25 people. The last commercial raft on the Rhine left in 1968.

Towing shipping

Traditionally, boats and barges were moved by sails , oars , stakes or towing ( bombing ). These techniques have been pushed back since the invention of the steam engine at the end of the 18th century. From 1850 on, the decline of the towboat industry was on the horizon. The Teltow Canal was an exception . After its opening in 1906 until 1945, the barges were pulled by electric towing locomotives.

Rope and chain shipping

Before paddle steamers and screw steamers were technologically mature, chain shipping was operated on the Elbe , Main and Neckar , in which a chain of steam engines laid in the fairway was pulled over and through the ship. From 1873 to 1904, rope tugs , also known as "Tauer" or "Hexe", were used on the Lower Rhine between Emmerich and Duisburg, Duisburg and Oberkassel and Oberkassel to Bingen . These pulled themselves to the mountain on a 43 mm thick rope that was anchored in the fairway. With the same towing power, they required 25% less power than a steam tug and only 10 instead of 16 crew members.

In 1873, the Tauer I needed 16 hours with seven barges and 2,700 tons of cargo from Emmerich to Duisburg. Since shipping increased more and more at this time and the rope ships could not evade, this mode of transport was discontinued in 1904.

In France , a chain tugboat is still in operation on the Canal de Saint-Quentin . It is 25 m long, 5 m wide and has a 1 m draft. It is powered by a 600 volt electric motor. The chain ship can pull up to 32 peniches through the 5.67 km long Riquevaltunnel . The speed is 2.5 km / h. The chain laid in the canal is 8 kilometers long and weighs 96 tons. The chain ship is used because the Penichen are not allowed to drive through with their own motor power due to insufficient ventilation of the tunnel.

Steamship

Model of the De Zeeuw , one of the first steamers on the Rhine
Steam wheel tractor
Triple expansion steam engine from a Rhine tug, Rhine Museum Koblenz

On June 12, 1816, the English The Defiance was the first steamship to sail to Cologne. In 1824 the steamship De Zeeuw drove to Kaub with a drive power of 50 hp. The first liner service on the Rhine began in 1827 with the Concordia . In 1829 the first paddle steam tug on the Rhine, Herkules , pulled up to six sailing ships with a cargo of 125 tons each. As early as 1836, steamboats were sailing daily from Koblenz in the direction of Strasbourg and Rotterdam. The first screw tractor was used around 1880. All other tugs were side wheel tugs. Of the 170 wheeled boats built up to 1929, 135 were still in service in 1935. In 1970 the last steam tug left the Rhine. Side-wheel tugs dominated cargo shipping on the Rhine until the 1960s. They pulled up to ten barges without their own propulsion. Thereafter, the pusher shipping was used .

Motor boating

The last rear wheel tractor Beskydy on the Elbe in Dresden - 2016

In 1910 the first diesel engine was installed in a barge. This type of drive became more and more popular. The steam tugs were replaced by diesel tugs that had an output of up to 4000 hp. The strongest tugs were the Uri , Schwyz and Unterwalden . However, these disappeared with the introduction of push boats . Today (2016) the last, listed rear-wheel tractor Beskydy is still on the Elbe .

Freight motor shipping

On the Neckar , after the canalization of the river , in which the shipping company Ludwig and Jakob Götz was involved, the first motor ships were also put into service by the shipping company Götz. On March 25, 1925, the MV Gebrüder Götz was launched at the Anderssen shipyard . It was the first motorized cargo ship on the Neckar and belonged to the fleet of the then Ludwig and Jakob Götz oHG . The Götz brothers' engine output was initially 18 hp with a load capacity of 271 tons. As early as 1926, the Götz brothers' engine was increased to 60 hp. From 1928 to 1932 the motor freight ships Einigkeit , Neckarperle and Glück-Auf joined the fleet of shipping companies Ludwig and Jakob Götz.

Tanker shipping

Tanker shipping has its origins in the Fendel shipping company , which began in 1875 as a specialty operation . As early as 1887, the Fendel shipping company had grown to four ships; the tankers of the company founded by Joseph Conrad Fendel transported 50,000 barrels of petroleum annually from the mouth of the Rhine to Mannheim . Fendel had the first ship converted into an inland tanker by inserting individual tanks into one of his inland vessels called Carolina . Since Fendel was completely unrivaled at first, Joseph Conrad Fendel commissioned the first ships designed purely for tanker shipping on rivers throughout Germany between 1890 and 1891. In 1894 the company was officially registered as the Fendel Brothers shipping company . The newly formed ten tanker shipping company Fendel was the founder of tanker shipping on German inland waters .

Passenger shipping

In addition, passenger shipping developed on the Neckar in the 1920s with its own motorized ship types for passenger transport , after the river was expanded into a large shipping route. The passenger shipping company Gebr. Bossler in Neckarsteinach and Heidelberg , which was founded in 1926, was one of the first pure passenger shipping companies on the Neckar .

Inland shipping today

Much has changed in inland shipping since the 1950s. The large tow trains disappeared, but the push units came in, which are cheaper with fewer staff than the tow trains. A push convoy with four barges can transport up to 12,000 tons. Over the years the ships got bigger and bigger; Today Rhine ships up to 135 meters in length and 17.5 meters in width and over 6,000 tons of carrying capacity operate. The nautical equipment of today's ships is comparable to that of seagoing ships. Radar , GPS , electronic maps, ship radio and autopilot are standard in new buildings today. The joystick has replaced the steering wheel, the engines have become smaller, stronger and more environmentally friendly with exhaust gas cleaning and soot filters .

With the introduction of the container in the 1970s, another change took place in inland shipping. First, the containers were transported with conventional ships. Special container ships that can load up to 500 containers are now being used. The container service runs according to fixed timetables. Other special ships such as car transporters , gas tankers , double-hulled ships for the transport of dangerous goods or RoRo ships are used. In the Netherlands, ships for special requirements are developed time and again, for example a ship for transporting palletized goods with an automatic loading and unloading system. There are ships for the transport of sugar, flour and other powdery goods, container ships with their own on-board crane, inland ships made of composite materials , passenger ships with hybrid drives and tour boats with fuel cells . New drive concepts such as Z-drive , water jet drive or, as with the newly developed Futura tanker TMS Till Deymann , four rudder propellers are installed.

River cruise ships are increasingly used in passenger shipping. The latest development is the TwinCruiser , in which the drive and passenger ship are separate. This means that passengers are less affected by noise and vibrations. Catamarans are also used as day trip boats . The largest is the MS RheinEnergie from Cologne-Düsseldorf Deutsche Rheinschiffahrt .

literature

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Clemens von Looz-Corswarem: On the development of shipping on the Rhine from the Middle Ages to the 19th century in: "Düsseldorf and his ports", 1996 (PDF; 943 kB), queried on June 11, 2011
  2. ↑ Departure of the steamships from Koblenz , requested on August 11, 2012
  3. ^ Karl Heinz Knörr: Schlierbach - history and stories . Ed .: District Association Heidelberg-Schlierbach e. V. Guderjahn , Heidelberg 1999, ISBN 3-924973-84-9 , p. 156 .
  4. ^ A b Hanspeter Rings: Neckarschiffahrt: Illustrated history of Ludwig and Jakob Götz KG. With the memories of Friedrich Götz . 1st edition. Edition Quadrat, Mannheim 1990, ISBN 3-923003-49-8 , pp. 43 .
  5. ^ Herbert Komarek: Neckarsteinach 850 years of shipping in the course of time . Ed .: Schifferverein Neckarsteinach e. V. 1st edition. Wartberg Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2003, ISBN 3-8313-1321-0 , p. 41 .
  6. ↑ Helmut Betz: Historisches vom Strom - The Neckarschiffahrt from the tow barge to the large motor ship . 1st edition. tape V . Krüpfganz, Duisburg 1989, ISBN 3-924999-04-X , p. 25 .
  7. ^ Herbert Komarek: Neckarsteinach 850 years of shipping in the course of time . Ed .: Schifferverein Neckarsteinach e. V. 1st edition. Wartberg Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2003, ISBN 3-8313-1321-0 , p. 34 .
  8. ↑ Helmut Betz: Historisches vom Strom - The Neckarschiffahrt from the tow barge to the large motor ship . 1st edition. tape V . Krüpfganz, Duisburg 1989, ISBN 3-924999-04-X , p. 27 .
  9. ↑ a b Ingo Heidbrink: German inland tanker shipping - 1887–1994 . In: Uwe Schnall (Hrsg.): Writings of the German Maritime Museum . tape 51 . Convent Verlag, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-934613-09-8 , pp. 23-24 .
  10. ↑ a b Helmut Betz: Historisches vom Strom - The Neckarschiffahrt from the tow barge to the large motor ship . 1st edition. tape V . Krüpfganz, Duisburg 1989, ISBN 3-924999-04-X , p. 142 .
  11. ^ Herbert Komarek: Neckarsteinach 850 years of shipping in the course of time . Ed .: Schifferverein Neckarsteinach e. V. 1st edition. Wartberg Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2003, ISBN 3-8313-1321-0 , p. 54 .