Hoheweg (ship, 1974)
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The Hoheweg was a fishing cutter that sank in the Outer Weser in the evening of November 8, 2006 . The accident in which four seamen were killed was one of the most serious shipping accidents in the North Sea in recent years . Due to the circumstances of the accident and the initially missing sailors, media interest was great from the start.
history
The fishing cutter was built in 1974 at the Julius Diedrich shipyard in Oldersum , East Frisia, under construction number 123 as Roswitha with its home port in Bremerhaven ( fishing license number : BX 758). It was designed as a side-catcher fishing trawler. The fishing cutter was driven by a Deutz eight - cylinder four - stroke diesel engine with an output of 560 hp (412.2 kW , subsequently throttled to comply with a regulation to limit the engine output for fishing vessels to 221 kW), which acted on a fixed propeller . In 1980 the fishing cutter was equipped with a Kort nozzle to increase the propeller thrust and provided with a weather protection deck. The conversion work took place under the supervision of Germanischer Lloyd and the See-Berufsgenossenschaft . The fishing cutter was used in the North Sea as far as the Faroe Islands and west of the Shetland Islands .
In January 1990 the fishing cutter was sold to Brake and renamed Hoheweg . In the winter of 2003/2004, extensive modifications were made to the cutter in Brake without the supervision of the classification society or the See-Berufsgenossenschaft. The Hoheweg was also converted from a side trawler to a rear catcher.
Downfall
On November 8, 2006, the Hoheweg was on its way from Brake to the Baltic Sea to fish in westerly winds of up to 8 Beaufort . In addition to the master, there were three crew members , a helmsman , a deckhand and a trainee on board.
At about 20:44 h the radar echo and the AIS position display of the cutter disappeared in the area of the Alte Weser near the north. An emergency report was received at 8:44:45 p.m. from the cutter's EPIRB , whereupon - after the cutter did not answer via radio - the DGzRS Maritime Emergency Management in Bremen ( MRCC Bremen) initiated a search for the cutter Emergency cruiser Hermann Marwede , Hermann Helms , Bernhard Gruben , Vormann Steffens and Hannes Glogner as well as the fishing protection boat Meerkatze , the multi-purpose ship Neuwerk and the two police boats Mayor Brauer and Bremen 2 were involved. Aircraft and helicopters of the German Navy ( Breguet Atlantic and Dornier Do 228 as well as SeaKing and Westland Lynx ), whose operations were coordinated by the RCC Glücksburg, were also involved in the search .
During the search and on the next day, when the rescue cruiser Hans Hackmack , the police boat Niedersachsen 5 and again the Bremen 2 and the customs cruiser Bremerhaven also participated, several objects were found by the Hoheweg , including a. Lifebuoys, the cutter's inflatable boat, the life raft, fish boxes, fishnet balls, fishing nets and ropes, fenders, life jackets and personal items of the crew such as shoes and sweaters. On November 9, the search was ended at around 1.30 p.m., as the water temperature meant that it was not assumed that any survivors of the accident could be found.
On December 7th and 8th, 2006, the bodies of two crew members washed up on the Schleswig-Holstein coast. The deckhand's body was found in front of Pellworm , and that of the helmsman near the Hauke-Haien-Kooges . A third body, that of the trainee, was found and recovered on June 10, 2007 in the North Sea between Heligoland and the mouth of the Elbe. The body of the captain of the fishing boat is still missing today.
Salvage
On November 15, after a targeted search for the wreck of the Hoheweg, the surveying, wreck search and research vessel Atair of the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) located an unknown wreck on the western north coast at noon, which is very likely to be the fishing cutter acted. On November 17, divers from the wreck search ship Wega examined the wreck and confirmed that it was the Hoheweg . The wreck was about 7 meters deep.
Since the wreck represented a hazard to shipping traffic and the fuel on board posed an environmental hazard, the salvage of the wreck was ordered by the responsible water and shipping authority in Bremerhaven . The owner of the cutter, who was initially responsible for this, gave up the wreck. The Bremerhaven Waterways and Shipping Authority therefore commissioned a company in Cuxhaven to salvage the wreck after a tender , which was carried out on July 22, 2007 with the help of the Samson floating crane , which can lift up to 900 t. The wreck was then brought to Bremerhaven and docked at the Bredo shipyard in the fishing port to investigate the cause of the accident.
Investigation into the cause of the accident
During the investigation of the wreck by the Federal Bureau of Maritime Casualty Investigation and the waterway police , no damage was found that could have led to the vessel sinking. However, a deck wash hose was found which was stretched tightly towards the Kort nozzle on the port side of the cutter. The hose was pinched between the propeller blade and the Kort nozzle and blocked the propeller. On the deck of the cutter, various doors and lids to the fish room hatches were not locked. In its final report published on March 15, 2007, the Federal Bureau of Maritime Casualty Investigation found that the propeller blocked by the hose hanging overboard had caused the engine to stall. The cutter was no longer maneuverable as a result. The extensive modifications to the cutter in the winter of 2003/2004 led to a significant deterioration in stability , so that the maneuverable cutter capsized and then sank. In addition, the anchoring equipment of the cutter was not in compliance with the regulations, so that no emergency anchoring was possible after the failure of the machinery. The conclusions of the Federal Bureau of Maritime Casualty Investigation were criticized by the shipowner of the cutter. During the investigation, only calculations were carried out, but the wreck was not subjected to any heeling test in order to check the theoretical values. After completing the investigation into the cause of the accident, the cutter was scrapped in Bremerhaven.
reception
- Radio Bremen produced a report about the sinking of the Hoheweg , which was broadcast for the first time on NDR television in March 2008 under the title "Death in the Storm - the last journey of the Hoheweg " .
- Lars Schmitz-Eggen, author of contemporary maritime history, published a book about the sinking of the Hoheweg in 2009 .
literature
- Lars Schmitz-Eggen: The fate of the "Hoheweg". Books on Demand , Norderstedt 2009, ISBN 978-3-8391-1996-9 .
- Andreas Kahnwald, Karsten Wild, Werner Winkartz: Sinking and salvage of the fishing boat "Hoheweg". In: Wasser- und Schifffahrtsdirektion Nordwest (ed.): Between Weser and Ems , edition 2007 (issue 41), pp. 1–9 ( PDF file, approx. 410 kB ).
Web links
- Sinking of the fishing boat "Hoheweg" , investigation report 564/06, Federal Bureau of Maritime Casualty Investigation (PDF file, 2.6 MB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Wolfgang Heumer: Errors during conversion caused the cutter “Hoheweg” to capsize , Welt Online , March 16, 2008. Accessed October 31, 2012.
- ^ Cutter "Hoheweg" found - crew still missing , Welt Online, November 15, 2006. Retrieved on October 31, 2012.
- ↑ Hans Drunkenmölle: Downfall of the "Hoheweg": Public Prosecutor is investigating again , NWZ Online , March 17, 2008. Retrieved on November 8, 2011.
- ↑ Lore Timme-Hansel: On board never a bad feeling , NWZ Online, March 19, 2008. Accessed November 8, 2011.
- ^ The last voyage of the cutter "Hoheweg" , NWZ Online, February 27, 2008. Accessed on November 8, 2011.
- ↑ Dead in the storm. The last ride up the Hoheweg, Radio Bremen, February 12, 2008. Retrieved November 8, 2011.
- ↑ Torsten Wewer: History of a Downfall , NWZ Online, November 5, 2009. Retrieved November 8, 2011.
- ↑ Kay Müller: Who looted the wreck of the cutter "Hoheweg"? , Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag , February 10, 2010. Accessed April 11, 2016.
Coordinates: 53 ° 55 ′ 46 ″ N , 8 ° 2 ′ 47 ″ E