Kattenturm (ship, 1907)
 The Kattenturm
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The Kattenturm of the German Steamship Company "Hansa" (DDG "Hansa") put into service in 1907 was the shipping company's first and only tower decker . She was the shipping company's first ship whose name ended in -turm , as were eight other ships in the Warturm class up until 1911 .
The Kattenturm remained a single ship. At the beginning of the First World War , she was in the Mediterranean . In 1916 it was confiscated by the Italian government. As a Pontida underway , it was lost on November 21, 1917 by a mine hit off Varazze .
History of the ship
On November 2, 1906, a ship for the German Steamship Company "Hansa" ran for the first time at the shipyard William Doxford & Sons Ltd. in Sunderland from the stack . The new building with construction number 375 was named Kattenturm after a watchtower that was no longer in existence, and at times even a small fort, which secured the transition from the highway to Syke across Ochtum , which still forms the border of the Bremen area . However, this tower stood in today's district of Kattenesch, next to the current district of Kattenturm. The ending -turm was first used by the DDG "Hansa" after -fels , -eck , -stein and -burg , presumably because the new building was a tower decker . This type was specially developed for the transport of bulk goods before the turn of the century. The British shipyard was almost the sole manufacturer of this type of ship.
The new building was 121.6 m long, 17.22 m wide and had a draft of 6.3 m. The ship was measured with 6018 GRT and had a deadweight of 8600 t. A triple expansion steam engine from the shipyard with 2500 hp gave it a speed of 11 knots . These data were largely similar to the Rheinfels class ships that were purchased at the same time .
The Kattenturm was delivered on January 2, 1907 and used in the shipping company's liner service. In normal liner service, the construction-related small loading hatches for the usual loads of the shipping company are unlikely to have particularly proven themselves. Since 1907 the DDG "Hansa" has also been traveling from New York to Australia , and in 1910, 1912 and 1913 the Kattenturm also made such trips. The voyage in 1913 began in the USA in May and after the cargo for Australia had been distributed to Brisbane , the ship went to Newcastle (New South Wales) to begin the return journey with a full load of coal to Singapore .
A follow-up order for ships of this type was not placed.
From 1908 a class of eight ships followed, which were also named after former defense towers in Bremen. The ships of the Warturm class had a load capacity of 7,600 and 8,200 dwt with roughly the same external dimensions and were built in four shipyards by 1911. While five ships were built at Tecklenborg in 1908, 1909 and 1911, Swan Hunter in 1908, FSG in 1909 and AG Weser in 1911 each delivered a ship.
Fate of war
On 5th / 6th August 1914 belonged the Kattenturm with the Reichspostdampfer General (8063 BRT), the Ambria (5463 BRT) of the Hapag and the Barcelona (5446 BRT) from Sloman to the German merchant ships, which in Messina the Mediterranean division of the Imperial Navy ( SMS Goeben and Breslau ) supplied with coal for the breakthrough to Constantinople. The navy had ordered the merchant ships to Messina, where the German warships were supposed to replenish their supplies after the bombardment of Algerian ports before they wanted to break through to Turkey . Since the German ships were not prepared for the coaling of the warships and the Italian authorities refused to give any support to the Germans, who were still formally allied, in order to maintain neutrality, it was only possible to reload 1,500 t from the merchant ships to the cruisers in the given time.
In September 1914, the Kattenturm moved to Syracuse in Sicily and was interned there and confiscated on the Entente side when Italy entered the war. On August 26, 1916, the Italian government took it into service as a Pontida .
On November 21, 1917, the ship coming with a cargo of grain from the USA was hit by a mine off Varazze west of Genoa and sank. A man died in the sinking of the former Kattenturm .
Further ships of the DDG Hansa with the name Kattenturm
In 1944 there was again a Kattenturm (1944/45) when the first standard cargo ship of the Hansa-A type was launched for the DDG "Hansa". The 1923 GRT ship was confiscated by the British at the end of the war in Brunsbüttel and remained in service under various names and under British, Greek and Panamanian flags until 1969. The seven type A ships under construction for DDG “Hansa” were all given tower names; five were delivered by 1945.
A third Kattenturm (1956–1962) was built in October 1956 by renaming the fourth Stahleck of the shipping company, also a ship of the Hansa A type, which had survived the war unfinished and was built in October 1952 for DDG Hansa. The ship, sold to Panama in 1962, was abandoned in 1977. From 1952 to 1956 the DDG "Hansa" took three more Hansa-A ships into service, which were separated again by 1964.
The fourth Kattenturm (1966–1981) came into service in March 1966 as an “offshore” supplier of 496 GRT. Of this type, the shipping company received a variety of funding models twelve boats whose names appear on tower or hinged gate ended. From October 1975, the Elsflether shipyard converted the Kattenturm into a diving support ship. After the bankruptcy of DDG "Hansa", the ship was sold to Mexico in 1981 and renamed Huichol . On December 14, 1985, the Huichol sank in the Cantarell oil field about 36 nautical miles northeast of Ciudad del Carmen in the Gulf of Campeche . Of the 77 men in the crew, only 33 could be saved.
Individual evidence
- ^ Journey to Australia July 1913
- ^ Herbert: War voyages of German merchant ships , p. 109
- ^ Fall of the Pontida
Web links
- Kattenturm (1)
- Fall of the Pontida
- Diving to the Pontida ex Kattenturm
- Kattenturm (2)
- Kattenturm (3) ex Stahleck
- OSA 212 Kattenturm (4)
literature
- Hans Georg Prager: DDG Hansa: From liner service to special shipping. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford, 1976, ISBN 3-7822-0105-1
- Reinhold Thiel: The history of the DDG Hansa. Volume 1: 1881-1918. HM Hauschild, Bremen, 2010, ISBN 3-8975-7477-2