Hamburg class
 The Hamburg
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As Hamburg-class designated ship class is a series of three combination ships of the HAPAG . They were used together with three structurally identical Norddeutscher Lloyd ships and followed up on the East Asia passenger service operated by the two shipping companies before the Second World War .
history
construction
After the shipbuilding restrictions of the Potsdam Agreement had been largely relaxed , Hapag rebuilt its cargo ship fleet. Starting with acquisitions and charter ships, new builds were continuously put into service from 1950 onwards. About three years later, Hapag ordered three fast combined cargo and passenger ships for service to the Far East. At the end of March 1954, the shipping company was able to take over the first ship, the Hamburg , from the shipyard. Almost a year later, in March 1955, the HAPAG trio was complete.
For the resumption of the first passenger service after the war, Norddeutsche Lloyd and Hapag decided to build six identical combi ships which, although designed as cargo ships, could also take passengers. The Hapag combined ships Hamburg , Frankfurt and Hanover , like the three NDL ships of the Schwabenstein class , Schwabenstein , Hessenstein and Bayernstein , had facilities for up to 87 first class passengers and crews of up to 90 men. All six ships were built at the Vulkan shipyard in Bremen-Vegesack.
The ship's propulsion system consisted of two double-acting seven-cylinder diesel engines manufactured at the shipyard under license from MAN , which acted on a screw via a gear and helped the ships to reach a speed of 17.5 knots.
Use at Hapag
All three ships of the series were used on Hapag's longest route, the East Asia service, while the three sister ships of the Schwabenstein class of North German Lloyd were used in the jointly operated service.
Although the ships were very well received by the travel public and the shippers, they soon turned out to be unprofitable, as the number of passengers increasingly turned to air traffic, not least because of the complex propulsion system. Since the increase in speed was on the long routes of East Asia service, the only means of long wait times of ships in Asia catch, followed by the Hapag this development and continued in the years 1964-1967 seven quick freighter of Westfalia class going. These only had twelve passenger seats. The Hamburg-class ships remained in service in parallel until 1966/67.
Later career
In 1966/67, Hapag sold its three ships to the Malaysia Overseas Lines shipping company in Monrovia. In 1971 the ships were again transferred to United Overseas Export Lines Inc. in Monrovia. The former Hamburg was lost as Oriental Warrior in 1972 after being stranded, the other two ships remained in service for a further eleven and twelve years as Oriental Hero and Oriental Inventor before arriving in Kaohsiung for demolition in late 1978 and early 1979.
The ships
| The Hamburg class combi ships | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Building name | Launched delivery |
Construction number |
IMO number |
Renaming and whereabouts | |
| Hamburg | December 17, 1953 March 25, 1954 |
831 | 5141146 | 1967 Oriental Warrior , engine room explosion on May 25, 1972 on a trip from New York to Hong Kong and about 40 nautical miles northeast of Dayton Beach aground, two days later in tow to Jacksonville and aground there again, towed to sea on September 25 and sunk | |
| Frankfurt | May 29, 1954 July 12, 1954 |
834 | 5120104 | 1967 Oriental Hero , launched on December 28, 1977 in Hong Kong and scrapped at Lung Fa Steel & Iron in Kaohsiung from January 1978 | |
| Hanover | November 25, 1954 March 10, 1955 |
840 | 5141861 | November 1966 Oriental Inventor , arrived on December 25, 1978 at Nang Eng Steel Enterprise in Kaohsiung for demolition | |
literature
- Krüger-Kopiske, Karsten Kunibert: The ships of Hapag-Lloyd . Drawings and CVs. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-7822-0861-7 .
- Seiler, Otto J .: East Asia trip . Liner shipping of Hapag-Lloyd AG through the ages. Verlag ES Mittler & Sohn, Herford 1988, ISBN 3-8132-0271-2 .
- Witthöft, Hans Jürgen: HAPAG . Hamburg-America Line. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 1973, ISBN 3-7822-0087-X .
- Harald Focke , Frank Scherer: With the combined ship to Rio and the Far East. Hamburg Süd, Hapag and NDL . Oceanum, Wiefelstede 2017, ISBN 978-3-86927-421-8 .