The new building was commissioned in 1964 by the Waterways and Shipping Directorate North and delivered in December 1966 by the Wärtsilä shipyard in Helsinki . The design essentially corresponded to the Finnish Karhu- class icebreakers . To improve the icebreaker performance, two additional propellers were attached to the bow and a heeling system prevented freezing in the ice, which heeled the ship by a maximum of 8 ° from one side to the other within 90 seconds.
The Hanseatic League belonged to the Federal Republic of Germany, but was operated by the Finnish National Board of Navigation and was only ordered to Germany when needed. For this reason, the ship drove with either Finnish or German national emblems . A deployment in German waters took place, for example, in February 1979, where many ships in the Kiel Fjord were freed from difficult ice conditions by the Hanseatic League .
After decommissioning, the Hansa in Greece was supposed to be converted into a hospital ship, but on the transfer trip it caught fire in the Mediterranean and was totally destroyed.
literature
Hartwig Wegner: The icebreaker “Hanse” in HANSA year 1967 No. 4 pages 250–252
K. Johannsen / HC Paulßen von Beck / H. Kunstmann / H. Koehler: The new German icebreaker "Hanse" in HANSA year 1967 no. 6 pages 463–473
Web links
Commons : Hanse - collection of images, videos and audio files