La Suisse (ship, 1910)
 |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
The La Suisse is a paddle wheel steamer on Lake Geneva . The ship, built in 1910, is the largest paddle steamer in Switzerland.
Until the commissioning of the motor ship Lausanne (ship, 1991) , the La Suisse was the flagship of the Compagnie Générale de Navigation sur le Lac Léman (CGN), which operates passenger shipping on the entire Lake Geneva region. Even today, the La Suisse is one of five active paddle steamers on Lake Geneva and is considered the flagship of the CGN's Belle Époque steamship fleet.
history
In 1908, it was decided to build a new steamship for Lake Geneva , which should exceed all steamships that have ever sailed on a Swiss lake in terms of size and comfort. The ship was built by the Sulzer company in Winterthur . La Suisse was launched in 1910 and was accepted into the course service on May 25 of the same year.
The ship has a length of 73.80 m (total length 78 m) over the main deck, a total width of 15.90 meters and an average draft (unloaded) of 1.68 meters. The two paddle wheels are driven by an inclined two-cylinder superheated steam compound machine with a maximum output of 1,400 hp . The original capacity was 1500 passengers. Since the last renovation, the ship has a capacity of 850 people, including 254 restaurant seats.
During the Second World War, the paddle steamer was idle, but was carefully preserved. Since 1960, the original steam boilers were no longer heated with coal , but with heavy oil . At the same time the ship was partially rebuilt. Due to boiler damage, the La Suisse had to be temporarily taken out of service at the end of 1968 until the old steam boiler was replaced by a new boiler together with a major renovation of the entire ship in the years 1970–1971. In 1999 the boiler burner was replaced and converted to light heating oil . Another general renovation of the ship took place in 2007–2009, during which, among other things, its exterior was restored to its original 1910 condition. In June 2011, the La Suisse, along with the other Lake Geneva ships of the Belle Époque, was placed under protection by the government council of the canton of Vaud due to its historical importance.
literature
- Jürg Meister, Josef Gwerder, Erich Liechti: Shipping on Lake Geneva . Birkhäuser, Basel 1977, ISBN 3-7643-0909-1 .
- Charlotte Kunz: The paddle steamers of Lac Léman. (= Swiss Art Guide. No. 316). Ed. Society for Swiss Art History GSK. Bern 1982, ISBN 3-85782-316-X .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Roland Kallmann: The «La Suisse» rises into the fountain of youth. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. September 4, 2007, accessed July 4, 2011 .
- ↑ ge.ch, French-language commercial register of the canton of Geneva, spelling Compagnie Générale de Navigation sur le Lac Léman for the entry of Michel Jeannet (ship restoration). Accessed on November 29, 2016
- ↑ La Suisse. (PDF; 417 KB) (No longer available online.) CGN, archived from the original on January 6, 2012 ; Retrieved July 4, 2011 (French). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ S / S La Suisse. Association des amis des bateaux à vapeur du Léman, accessed July 4, 2011 (in French).
- ↑ La Suisse. (No longer available online.) In: CGN - Die Flotte. CGN, archived from the original on August 25, 2011 ; Retrieved July 4, 2011 (French). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Roland Kallmann: 100 years of the La Suisse steamship . In: Dampferzeitung . Vol. 39, no. 3 , 2010, p. 37 .
- ↑ Lake Geneva: Vaudois government council wants to renovate paddle steamers. SR DRS, June 17, 2011, accessed July 4, 2011 .
