Kaiser Wilhelm (ship, 1871)
Kaiser Wilhelm in front of the island of Mainau in 1888
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The steamship Kaiser Wilhelm was the first saloon ship on Lake Constance . It entered service on September 3, 1871. Godmother was the Emperor's daughter and Grand Duchess Luise von Baden .
history
Originally the name Victoria was intended for this ship , but due to the changed political situation after the Franco-German war, the name Kaiser Wilhelm was chosen . With this ship the Helvetia was replaced. The Swiss machine works Escher Wyss was the builder of Kaiser Wilhelm . The individual parts delivered from Zurich were put together in the old Konstanz shipyard, on the slide at the later Zeppelin monument. The total length of the ship was 53.85 m, the greatest width 12.10 m. The Kaiser Wilhelm gave a two-cylinder double expansion steam engine from Woolf's design with 375 PSi a maximum speed of 24 km / h.
The Kaiser Wilhelm was operated by the Grand Ducal Baden State Railways . Although Baden largely surrendered its sovereignty after the founding of the German Empire, the railways and thus also the Kaiser Wilhelm remained under state sovereignty. There were therefore no passenger steamers on Lake Constance that sailed under the flag of the Empire. In addition to regular and special trips, the Kaiser Wilhelm was also preferred for trips by the grand ducal court to the summer residence on the island of Mainau . The ship gradually went through the entire development of the time. In 1880 the promenade deck was extended, and in 1886 a protected helm was built. The salon, furnished in the historicist style, was modernized for the first time in 1896. At the same time, the ship received steam heating and electrical lighting that year. In 1907 a new boiler group for superheated steam operation was installed and the machine system was modernized with a valve control. The old paddle wheels with 12 wooden shovels were replaced by new ones with eight iron shovels. The maximum power was now around 600 hp, the top speed 26 km / h. On October 3, 1907, the ship was used to transport the body of Friedrich I from the island of Mainau to Constance .
After the First World War and the end of the German monarchies, all ships with a ruler's name were renamed. Thus, the received Kaiser Wilhelm in 1919 the name of Baden , and was taken in the stock of Deutsche Reichsbahn the 1920s.
The ship completed its last cruise on September 30, 1930 on the Überlingersee. After it was taken out of service, the superstructure was removed and the hull sunk on February 23, 1931 in an unknown location in the Obersee.
The successor ship to the Baden was the city of Überlingen . By Constance Glockengießerei Rosenlächer cast ship's bell of Baden adorns the bow of the ship engine since 1949. Karlsruhe .
literature
- Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer, Karl F. Fritz: The history of the great Lake Constance ships (= Bodensee magazine, special. August 2000). Bodensee-Magazin-Verlag, Konstanz 2000, ISBN 3-93516-900-0 .
- Klaus von Rudolff, Claude Jeanmaire: Shipping on Lake Constance. Volume 2: The heyday of steam shipping. Contribution to the history of Lake Constance, history of the individual ships and registers. Published by the Bodensee-Schiffahrt interest group. Verlag Eisenbahn, Villigen AG 1981, ISBN 3-85649-071-X .
Web links
See also
- Grand Ducal Badische Bodenseedampfschiffahrt
- List of passenger ships on Lake Constance
- White Fleet (Lake Constance)
photos
Zaehringen (in the foreground) and Kaiser Wilhelm before the turn of the century
Kaiser Wilhelm (in the foreground), Habsburg and Greif in the port of Constance
