Gotha class

Gotha class (1907)
The Gotha
Launch :	October 21, 1907 - June 27, 1908
Commissioning:	November 27, 1907 - February 9, 1910
Builders:	Bremer Vulkan , Vegesack, construction no. 505/506, 509/510
Sister ships:	Gotha , Giessen , Eisenach , Coburg
Passengers:	18 + 5, 32 2nd class 1729 or 1650 between deck
Crew:	102 men
Technical specifications
Measurement:	6583-6757 GRT
Load capacity:	8,200, 8,140 dw
Length over all:	135.94 / 133.00 m
Width:	16.62 m
Draft :	... m
Machinery:	Quadruple expansion steam engine
Number of screws:	1
Power:	3200 or 3250 PSi
Top speed:	12 kn
Whereabouts
1907–1933 NDL 1933–1990 loss / demolition

The Gotha class was a series of ships in service with the North German Lloyd (NDL).

From 1907, the NDL hired new passenger and cargo steamers in its South America service. Above all, they should finally replace the old city-class steamers that were last used again on the Río de la Plata . The commissioning was delayed by the bad traffic situation, which led to the non-acceptance of the second pair of ships. From 1912, the four ships of the Gotha class were reinforced by four passenger and cargo steamers of the Sierra class in order to gain a higher share of the passenger traffic to South America.

Service at the NDL

The new steamers were ordered from Bremer Vulkan (construction no. 505/506) with passenger facilities for 18 + 5 cabin seats of the second class and tween deck capacity for emigrants (1729 seats). They thus corresponded to the standard of the NDL ships to South America that was common at the time, which for years had generally only offered a few cabin spaces.

The lead ship Gotha expired on October 21, 1907 batch , was delivered on 27 November 1907 the NDL and launched only three days later to Río de la Plata . It had a load capacity of 8,200 dwt, was 135.94 m long and 16.62 m wide. Driven by a quadruple expansion steam engine of 3300 hp, the ship ran at 12 knots. It had a crew of 102 men. The sister ship Giessen , 6583 GRT, was launched on December 4, 1907, was delivered on January 28, 1908 and immediately put into service in La Plata.

The following buildings (No. 509/510) were launched as Eisenach and Coburg on June 23 and 27, respectively. Due to an existing shipping crisis, the NDL did not want to remove the two steamers. The Bremer Vulkan built it for its own account and chartered it out to the NDL in 1910. The Coburg was delivered on January 15th, the Eisenach followed on February 9th. The ships were measured with 6750 and 6757 GRT, had a deadweight of 8140 tdw and were only 133.00 m long with the same width and their engines had a nominal output of 3250 HP at the same speed. They had 32 cabin seats in the second class and 1650 seats in the tween deck. In 1912, NDL, who had meanwhile also bought the two replicas, decided to modernize the cabin facilities of all four ships and to increase their number. The first two ships of the class then had 50 second class seats, the other two even 65. In addition to the three-class ships of the Sierra class (1912), they continued to be used in the South American service of the NDL.

Fate of war

When the war broke out, Giessen was the only one at home. Initially, in Bremerhaven launched it was in November 1917 as a transporter for the Oeselunternehmen used as a transporter Nos. 16 and remained with short breaks also up in December 1918 in the service of the Navy. She transported troops to the Aaland Islands and Finland and in May 1918 served the liner SMS Westfalen, which ran aground at the Aaland Islands, as a barge. On March 30, 1920 she was extradited to Great Britain.

Eisenach and Coburg were in Pernambuco and Rio de Janeiro and were launched there. On June 1, 1917, they were confiscated by the Brazilian government and were used as Santarem and Pocone for Lloyd Brasileiro .

Gotha , located in Buenos Aires , was equipped to supply the cruiser squadron . On February 20, under Captain Hillmann , the Gotha left Montevideo with 3000 tons of coal and spare machine parts for Dresden, which had escaped the Falklands Battle . It was supposed to hit Dresden in the Pacific on March 5 , which did not succeed ( Dresden sunk on March 14, 1915). The Gotha was then in the March 20, 1915 Valparaíso interned. On July 13, 1920, the Gotha returned to Germany. Formally expropriated by the Reich, there was no extradition, as the ship was included in the Columbus Agreement and remained with the NDL.

Interwar operations

Gotha , which remained with the NDL as a result of the Columbus Agreement (autumn 1921) , was overtaken again in the South American service with 60 second class seats from 1921, and occasionally also went to Australia. She was laid up in April 1932 and then demolished in 1933 as the first ship of the class. The Gotha was the only ship of the class that was only in civil service with the NDL.

The Giessen , which was delivered to Great Britain on March 30, 1920 , was initially managed by Lamport & Holt ; In 1921 it got going as the City of Harvard for Ellerman Lines . In 1934 she was the second of the sister ships to be demolished.

The Brazilian Santarem ran 1919-1921 in charter for the French government, then again for Lloyd Brasileiro. Both Brazilian ships initially ran liner services between New York and then to a large number of Brazilian ports along the coast. For northern Brazil they were the mail steamers. Santarem was canceled in 1962. The sister ship Pocone was still registered in Brazil in 1990.

literature

• Carl Herbert: War voyages of German merchant ships. Broschek & Co, Hamburg 1934.
• Arnold Kludas : The History of German Passenger Shipping. Volume 3: Rapid growth 1900 to 1914. Ernst Kabel Verlag, Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-8225-0039-9 ( writings of the German Maritime Museum 20).
• Arnold Kludas: The ships of the North German Lloyd. Volume 1: 1857 to 1919. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1991, ISBN 3-7822-0524-3 .
• Maria Teresa Parker de Bassi: Cruiser Dresden. Odyssey of No Return. Koehler Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1993, ISBN 3-7822-0591-X .
• Claus Rothe: German ocean passenger ships. 1896 to 1918 . Steiger Verlag, Moers 1986, ISBN 3-921564-80-8 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ schiffe-maxim.de data and two pictures of Gotha
2. ↑ schiffe-maxim.de data and picture of the Giessen
3. ↑ schiffe-maxim.de u. a. Postcard from Coburg
4. ↑ theshipslist.com History and ship list of Lloyd Brasileiro