Kaiser Friedrich (ship)
Kaiser Friedrich in the service of the Hamburg-America Line
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The Kaiser Friedrich was an express steamer completed in 1898 for the North German Lloyd . Because the ship is not responsible for the liner shipping Bremerhaven - New York reached required speed, it was the HAPAG chartered and launched later. In 1912 the steamer was sold to the French Compagnie de Navigation Sud-Atlantique and operated as Burdigala to South America before it was re-launched. During the First World War , the ship was used by the French Navy as an armed troop transport. In November 1916, the former Kaiser Friedrich ran into a mine in the Aegean Sea and sank.
history
environment
The German Empire that emerged after the end of the Franco-Prussian War gave industry in Germany a strong growth spurt. Kaiser Wilhelm II had the goal of building up his own strong merchant navy that was independent of foreign capital. With subsidies from the German Reich, the two shipping companies, Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL) and Hamburg-American Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (Hapag), were able to develop strongly. By around 1895, North German Lloyd was so far advanced that it could dispute England's supremacy on the transatlantic passage from Europe to New York.
The director of the NDL Heinrich Wiegand therefore announced the procurement of two large transatlantic liners , which should be candidates for the prestigious Blue Ribbon . A guaranteed minimum speed of 21 knots was therefore required in the contract; furthermore, the test speed of 22.5 knots should be able to be maintained for six hours. Norddeutsche Lloyd gave the naval architects a free hand in the execution of the contract, but reserved the right to return the ships if the technical requirements of the contract were not met.
Only the two shipyards AG Vulcan Stettin and F. Schichau responded to the tender . While Vulcan had already built large ocean liners earlier, such as the express steamers Spree and Havel of the river class of the NDL and Augusta Victoria and Fürst Bismarck of the Hapag, Schichau was more familiar with torpedo boats and had until then had three mail steamers for the NDL at his Gdansk shipyard, Most recently, the Bremen was built according to an NDL plan with 10,522 GRT and 15.5 kn as the yard's largest merchant ship. The shipping company awarded one order each to the applicants and the Vulcan built the Kaiser Wilhelm der Große according to his plans , while the Danzig Schichau shipyard completed the Kaiser Friedrich according to its own plans .
The Szczecin Emperor Wilhelm the Great began his maiden voyage from Bremerhaven to New York on September 19, 1897 and won the Blue Ribbon in November 1897 and May 1898.
In the service of the North German Lloyd
The after Friedrich III. , German Kaiser in 1888, named Kaiser Friedrich was only launched on October 5, 1897 in Gdansk . In May 1898 the ship was completed and was transferred to Bremerhaven . The first sea tests were disappointing because the ship only achieved 20 knots instead of the required 22.5. Norddeutsche Lloyd therefore only added the ship to its fleet with the reservation that it would be improved. The steamer was therefore initially sent to Southampton , England , where the two propeller blades were shortened by 30 centimeters in a dry dock .
After the ship had returned to Bremerhaven, it began its first transatlantic voyage via Southampton to New York on June 7, 1898. The journey took seven days instead of the planned six, and the average speed was only 17.7 knots. In addition to bad weather, this was due to problems with the ship's engines, which both stood still for several hours during the journey due to overheated valves and afterwards could only be operated with reduced power. Broken screws on the condensate pump meant that the negative pressure in the condenser could not be maintained and the performance was reduced.
On the way back, the Kaiser Friedrich drove without passengers and still only reached 15 knots. The next two trips to America were therefore canceled and the ship was returned to Schichau for revision. The second transatlantic voyage began on September 14, 1898. On this voyage, too, the steamer did not reach the required speed and therefore needed more than six days for the voyage. Speeds in the range of 19 to 20 knots were driven. Three more transatlantic voyages followed before the ship returned to Schichau in December 1898.
During the next three months the shipyard tried to improve the steamer. The condensate pumps were replaced and the chimneys raised by 4.5 meters. On March 5, 1899, the ship started its first transatlantic voyage after the renovation. The trip lasted more than seven days because two propeller blades were lost during the journey. Nevertheless, eight more transatlantic voyages followed after the repair, because North German Lloyd had no replacement for the defective ship. The Kaiser Friedrich was officially returned to Schichau by Lloyd on June 27, 1899, as it did not fulfill the contract. At the same time, the shipping company ordered the Crown Prince Wilhelm from Vulcan. Until this was delivered, the 20 knot Empress Maria Theresia replaced the Kaiser Friedrich . The Empress Maria Theresia was rebuilt by Vulcan Stettin in 1899/1900 from the single screw ship Spree , which was increased from 6963 GRT to 8278 GRT and received a third chimney.
The Kaiser Friedrich's period of service at Norddeutscher Lloyd was accompanied and followed by a legal dispute between Schichau and the shipping company that lasted until 1908, which was ultimately won by Norddeutscher Lloyd. Schichau defended himself against the accusation of the NDL that the ship was not constructed correctly, arguing that the shipping company had burned bad coal and used inexperienced personnel and that the engines had therefore not achieved the performance required for propulsion.
In the service of the Hamburg-America Line
On August 7, 1899, Schichau announced that the ship would be chartered out to the Hamburg-America Line (HAL). The HAL was urgently looking for a fourth large ship to supplement its fleet of large transatlantic steamers, which at that time consisted of the Fürst Bismarck , the Columbia and the Augusta Victoria . The Kaiser Friedrich therefore drove for the Hamburg-America Line until the Germany that had already been ordered was delivered . On October 2, 1899, the steamer ran for the first time for a transatlantic voyage under the new shipowner from Southampton. On this voyage, the ship got off course off the coast of New Jersey and ran aground, albeit without being damaged. In the following winter, Blohm & Voss made minor modifications to enlarge the holds and accommodate more passengers of the cabin classes on the ship. On March 30, 1900, the Kaiser Friedrich started the first transatlantic voyage after the renovation. Seven more transatlantic voyages followed, until the ship was returned to Schichau in November of the same year and laid up in Hamburg for the next twelve years.
In 1910, a contract between Norwegian American Line and Schichau almost came about. Schichau would have acquired a stake in the shipping company on condition that Kaiser Friedrich was taken over. The ship would have been renamed Leif Eriksson by the new owner . The contract burst at the last minute.
The Compagnie de Navigation Sud-Atlantique , which emerged from the Société d'Etudes de Navigation in 1912 , was commissioned by the French government in July 1911 to take over all postal services between France and South America. The route Bordeaux - Lisbon - Dakar - Rio de Janeiro - Santos - Montevideo - Buenos Aires was to be used every fortnight from July 22, 1912. Until the ordered newbuildings were available, the shipping company procured used ships. For this reason the Kaiser Friedrich was bought by Schichau on May 1, 1912 for 4 million French francs. The steamer was renamed Burdigala , the Latin name of the city of Bordeaux. The ship was prepared for the new task at Blohm & Voss, with the arrangement of the holds changed and new boilers installed. The steamer was also painted white with the red taps from the company emblem on the chimneys.
On October 5, 1912, the Burdigala left Bordeaux for the first time for the journey to South Africa. For a year she was the fastest liner on this connection. On the voyage back to France, however, the ship had technical problems, so that it had to be repaired in dry dock near Bordeaux and therefore could not make the next voyage and the La Gascogne had to be chartered by the French Line. Because of this incident and the high coal consumption, the Burdigala fell out of favor with the shipping company as unprofitable. But it remained in service until the two newbuildings Lutetia and Gallia were delivered in autumn 1913. Then it was launched in Bordeaux.
In the service of the French Navy
In August 1914, the Burdigala was requisitioned by the French Navy . It served to transport troops from Toulon to Thessaloniki and the Dardanelles . In 1915 she was equipped as an auxiliary cruiser with a QF 4-inch Mk V naval gun and four 140-mm cannons. On November 13, 1916, the Burdigala left Thessaloniki for France. The next morning she ran into a mine near the Greek island of Kea and sank. The survivors were picked up by the British destroyer Rattlesnake . The mine was part of a minefield that had been laid out by the German submarine U 73 and which the Britannic also fell victim to a week later .
The wreck of the Burdigala lies at a depth of seventy meters off the northwest coast of the island of Kea. It was discovered in 2007 and was clearly identified in September 2008.
technical description
hull
The hull was 175 meters long between the perpendiculars, 183 meters above deck. The width on the frames was 19.52 meters. The shape of the stern was very complicated in the area of the wave exits and wave pants , which is considered to be the main cause of the excessive flow resistance and prevented the Kaiser Friedrich from reaching the required speed of 22 knots. Proof of this was provided by Johann Schütte , who carried out towing tests with models in a research facility in La Spezia , Italy . After this successful proof, the ship was returned to the Schichau and the construction of the towing test station Bremerhaven started immediately .
Furnishing
In terms of equipment for travelers, the steamer should set new standards. The rooms for the 750 travelers of the III. Classes were accommodated in the foredeck on the main and lower deck, the cabins of the 1st and most of the 2nd class were in the superstructures of the upper deck. The 180 1st class cabins could accommodate 350 passengers. In addition to the normal first class cabins, there were also several suites with a separate living room, bedroom, bathroom and private toilet. The dining room was on the main deck in the middle of the ship. The main staircase led from the dining room to the smoking and lounge on the promenade deck. In the aft ship, the 250 second class passengers were accommodated in 111 cabins on the poop deck, upper deck and main deck. The second class dining room was so large that the travelers could be catered for in one sitting. The steamer had a crew of 400, 180 of whom were responsible for the boiler and machinery. The stokers and coal trimmers had their own dining room and stairs to the sundeck.
Machine system
It was driven by two quadruple expansion machines with five cylinders each, which acted on three cranks. The high pressure cylinder had a diameter of 1098 mm, the first medium pressure cylinder 1633 mm, the second medium pressure cylinder 2341 mm and the two low pressure cylinders each 2370 mm. The two machines were located between the boiler systems in the middle of the ship. In contrast to most of the steamers built at the time, the two machines were not behind but between the boiler systems. This arrangement should improve the trim . The Kaiser Friedrich had nine double-end boilers and one single-end boiler, which were operated at 15.3 bar. The heating area was 6781.7 square meters. The bunkers held 3750 tons of coal.
See also
literature
- Arnold Kludas : The History of German Passenger Shipping 1850 to 1990 . Ernst Kabel Verlag, 1986.
- Arnold Kludas: The ships of the North German Lloyd 1857 to 1919 . Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, 1991, ISBN 3-7822-0524-3 .
- Claus Rothe: German ocean passenger ships 1896 to 1918 . Steiger Verlag, 1986, ISBN 3-921564-80-8 .
- Matthias Trennheuser: The interior design of German passenger ships between 1880 and 1940 . Hauschild-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-89757-305-5 .
Web links
- Emperor Friedrich
- S / S Burdigala Project - Site about the Burdigala wreck and its history (Greek, English)
- Emperor Friedrich / Burdigala . The Great Ocean Liners
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e O. Flamm: The latest successes in German trade and warship building . In: Stahl und Eisen - Zeitschrift für das Deutsche Eisenhüttenwesen, Volume 17, Part 2, December 15, 1897, p. 1044, Textarchiv - Internet Archive
- ↑ a b c d e f The sad story of S / S Burdigala, former S / S Kaiser Friedrich (1897–1916) . S / S Burdigala Project (English). Retrieved June 9, 2012
- ↑ a b The Kaiser Friedrich; The Fine, Big Steamship Makes Her Maiden Trip in Over Seven Days . In: New York Times , June 17, 1898
- ^ New Direct Line to Norway Assured . In: Exporters' review , May 1910, archive.org
- ^ S. Wentzler: The Schütte-Lanz-Innovation in context . ( Memento of July 31, 2012 in the Internet Archive ; PDF) p. 33