Irene Oldendorff
 The sister ship Brook
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The Irene Oldendorff was a German freight steamer operated by the Lübeck shipping company Egon Oldendorff . When the ship sank on December 31, 1951 in the mouth of the Ems, all 22 crew members and one pilot were killed.
details
The Irene Oldendorff was launched in March 1950 at Lübecker Maschinenbau Gesellschaft (LMG) in Lübeck as the second of nine Potsdam ships from this shipyard. Only a few months earlier, in January 1950, with her sister ship Brook, the first German cargo ship to be built after the Second World War for the shipping company HM Gehrckens had been put into service. The Irene Oldendorff in turn was followed by the identical wall frame for Gehrckens and six other of these ships. After commissioning, the Irene Oldendorff initially drove under the Charlie flag (German transitional trade flag).
The steamer was designed as a conventional general cargo ship in a three-island design with a deckhouse amidships. It had a measurement of 1494 GRT, two holds with a grain volume of 5347 m³ and a load capacity of around 3000 tons. The boiler system of the four-cylinder composite steam engine was heated with coal, as prescribed by the requirements of the occupation authorities.
Sinking of the ship
By December 30, 1951, the Irene Oldendorff had taken over a cargo of 2,750 tons of coke for Ystad in Emden , of which about 440 tons were stowed as deck cargo. The ship then started its voyage in Emden with a draft of 5.51 meters and slightly trimmed upside down. On the night of December 30th to 31st there was a storm of force 8 in the mouth of the Ems (other source: up to 10) Beaufort from west-southwest with good visibility. Several other ships had anchored at Borkum because of the bad weather , the captain of another ship of the Oldendorff shipping company, who had been warned by the advisory pilot of the expected bottom lakes in Hubertgat , turned around because of the warning. However, the Irene Oldendorff continued her voyage and in the early morning passed the pilot steamer Borkum , which crossed around five nautical miles south of the later sinking point in Hubertgat. The sea pilot Giens on board the Irene Oldendorff could not be retrieved due to the high seas in the mouth of the Ems. According to the captain of the Borkum , the swell that night was between seven and eight meters high. The wave height in the area of the sinking point slightly northwest of the Westerems was calculated to be an average of 6.3 to 7 meters with individual higher waves. The Irene Oldendorff had to align her course in the Ems estuary due to the mine danger still prevailing at the time according to the compulsory route , while the swell from port hit the ship diagonally aft. At around 4:10 a.m., the Irene Oldendorff's stern light could be seen for the last time at buoy J / E 1 . The Irene Oldendorff capsized and sank near the Zwangsweg somewhat northeast of this barrel . No radio messages were given and the pilot steamer neither saw nor heard any emergency signals. At least part of the crew was able to leave the ship in a lifeboat when it sank , but still did not survive the accident. The capsized boat and between 11 and 16 (depending on the source) corpses of the crew were washed up in front of Borkum; According to the police, the lifeboat had reached a sand bank in front of Borkum and contained a burned down blue fire . The boat crew apparently left the boat prematurely on the sandbar, the boat drifted away and the tide trapped the sailors. The corpses recovered later were in full gear and wore life jackets ; their wristwatches had stopped at 8:10 a.m. It is believed that the castaways thought they had already reached Borkum Beach. After the departure of the Irene Oldendorff, the pilot steamer drove back towards Borkum due to the bad weather and thus unknowingly remained a few nautical miles away from the lifeboat. The German Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked People (DGzRS) and the Noord- en Zuid-Hollandsch Redding Maatschappij (NZHRM) with the boat Insulinde initiated a search after the lifeboat was found. The Insulinde searched for a longer time because the DGzRS had not informed the NZHRM that the dead crew had been found. The remaining crew members of the sunken steamer could not be found. The lifeboat was returned to the shipping company by a Borkumer for a salvage premium of the equivalent of € 350.
Investigation and consequences
Since the Irene Oldendorff was still a very young ship and her sinking was the first major loss of a ship by the German merchant fleet under construction after the losses of the Second World War and the subsequent expropriations, the marine casualty led to lively discussions among experts as well as in the relevant maritime administration negotiations . Attempts to explain and suggestions for improvement. Against the background of the unfortunate death circumstances of the boat crew, the introduction of better rescue and signaling equipment was called for. Four days after the sinking was a brown oil stain northeast of the barrel 1 JE- in position 53 ° 38 ' N , 6 ° 17' O discovered. The wreck was subsequently examined in several dives. The sunken ship lay broken on its starboard side, the Steven pointed to 355 °, the rear towards 175 °. As far as it was visible, the dives made it impossible to hit a mine. Due to the heavy silting, later salvage of the ship was ruled out.
The loss of the ship was investigated in a maritime office negotiation at the Bremerhaven Sea Office and a subsequent civil lawsuit before the Lübeck Regional Court , whereby no complete clarification of the event could be achieved. The Maritime Administration ruled out deficiencies in the design, equipment and manning and found that the ship was loaded beyond the freeboard mark when it left Emden , expert Wendel later found that Irene Oldendorff, measured as a protective decker, could also be a full-decker with a larger deck without structural changes Draft could have been used. The shipowner and the heirs of the captain appealed against the verdict of the Maritime Office calling one, this was initially rejected on 25 August by the Chairman of the Maritime Office in Bremerhaven as inadmissible a then inserted complaint with the Federal Obersee Office was rejected on 12 November 1952 as unfounded.
In 1954 a treatise by the expert Wendel appeared in the shipping magazine Hansa , in which the circumstances of the shipwreck were examined again in detail. The sinking of the Irene Oldendorff seemed a bit puzzling at first, because the almost new ship had, according to the opinion of the time, had sufficient stability when it left Emden. The behavior of coke deck cargoes on overflowing lakes was clarified in experiments. It was found that the coke pieces themselves hardly absorb any water, but that the water coming over the cargo fills the many spaces between the coke pieces and can only flow off over the deck with a delay. In this way, in heavy seas, more and more water can collect in the deck cargo and reduce stability. In the case of Irene Oldendorff , a value of 90 tons of additional water was calculated, which would have halved the ship's ability to straighten it. In addition, the periodic change in stability in sea conditions, especially with waves coming diagonally from astern, was investigated. Wendel found out that at certain meeting periods and courses, a dangerous state of lack of stability and even the risk of capsizing can occur. The most likely cause was considered to be the capsizing of the ship under the influence of the high swell in the sea area in question, caused by a reduction in the ship's stability as a result of the water absorption of the coke cargo on deck, possibly increased by the deck cargo slipping. The results of the investigation were also incorporated into the future design of the corresponding stability safety regulations.
In an investigation of various stability accidents carried out in 2010 it was found that the marine casualty would not have been avoided by applying the current guidelines of the International Maritime Organization .
literature
- Hocking, Charles: Dictionary of Disasters at Sea During the Age of Steam: Including Sailing Ships and Ships of War Lost in Action, 1824-1962 . 1st edition. Lloyd's Register of Shipping, London 1969, ISBN 0-900528-03-6 , pp. 347 .
Web links
- Entry on Wrecksite (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Detlefsen, Gert Uwe; Abert, Hans Jürgen: The history and fate of German series freighters . Volume 1 - The development, German series after 1945 The fate of the Hansa-A-Freighter. Verlag Gert Uwe Detlefsen, Bad Zwischenahn 1998, ISBN 3-928473-41-7 , p. 36 .
- ^ Lloyd's Register 1950-51
- ↑ G. Schnadel: The stability of seagoing ships in "Hansa" Vol. 90, No. 39, September 26, 1953, pp. 1610–1614.
- ↑ a b c d K. Wendel: Loss of stability in swell and due to coke deck load in "Hansa" Vol. 91, 1954, pp. 2009-2022.
- ↑ a b c Schwabedissen, Tim: Stranded: Ship accidents off the North Sea coast . Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-7822-0893-5 .
- ^ A b F. Knuth: What does the marine casualty "Irene Oldendorff" teach us in "Hansa", Vol. 89, No. 6 of February 9, 1952, p. 240.
- ↑ a b c G. Rieken: Think of Dampfer “Irene Oldendorff” in “Hansa”, Vol. 89, No. 7 of February 16, 1952, p. 266.
- ↑ Loaded over the freeboard mark - sinking of the "Irene Oldendorff" off Borkum remains unexplained in the Hamburger Abendblatt of June 5, 1952
- ↑ Herbert Krüger: On the question of the “participants” in the maritime official appointment procedures in “Hansa” Vol. 90, No. 5, January 31, 1953, pp. 222/223.
- ↑ coke charge and stability - New studies on the sinking of the "Irene Oldendorff" in the Hamburger Abendblatt on November 16, 1954
- ↑ Patrick Schiller: Diploma thesis: Investigation of the theoretical avoidability of marine accidents through the application of MSC.1 / Circ. 1228 and MSC / Circ. 707 (= Technical University Hamburg-Harburg [Hrsg.]: Shipbuilding series ). Hamburg-Harburg September 2010, p. 41 ( online , (PDF; 4.91 MB)).