Munich (ship, 1972)

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Munich
Model of the Munich in the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven
Model of the Munich in the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven
Ship data
flag GermanyGermany Germany
Ship type LASH - cargo ship
Callsign DEAT
home port Bremen
Shipping company Hapag-Lloyd / Combi-Line
Shipyard J. Cockerill , Antwerp
Build number 860
Launch May 15, 1972
takeover 22nd September 1972
Whereabouts North of the in December 1978 Azores dropped
Ship dimensions and crew
length
261.4 m ( Lüa )
width 32.4 m
Draft Max. 11.25 m
measurement 37,134 GRT
 
crew 28
Machine system
machine 1 × diesel engine
( Sulzer 9RND90)
Machine
performance
26,100 hp (19,197 kW)
Top
speed
18 kn (33 km / h)
propeller 1 × 5-blade fixed propeller
Transport capacities
Load capacity 43,000 dw
Others
Registration
numbers
IMO no. 7214856

The motor ship Munich was a German cargo ship of the shipping company Hapag-Lloyd , which was mainly used on the North Atlantic route between European (especially Rotterdam and Bremen / Bremerhaven ) and North American ports (especially Baltimore , Savannah and New Orleans ). Their home port was Bremen. The Munich sank north of the Azores during a storm in December 1978 .

Lash Leichter in Rotterdam's Waalhaven with the Munich sister ship Bilderdyk (later Rhine Forest )
Munich portal crane (model)

history

The Munich was launched on May 12, 1972 at the Cockerill shipyard in Antwerp . It makes for Hapag-Lloyd in the lucrative appearing wanted LASH -Business (LASH carrier = transport of floating barges establish on a ship). For this purpose, she founded the subsidiary Combi-Line together with the Dutch Holland-Amerika-Lijn , for which the Munich and her Dutch sister ship the Bilderdyk worked .

The Munich was the only LASH ship that sailed under the German flag.

The downfall

The Munich ran on December 7, 1978 under the command of Captain Johann Dänekamp from Bremerhaven for her 62nd Atlantic crossing in the direction of Savannah in the US state of Georgia. The cargo consisted mainly of machinery and steel products .

Since the end of November 1978, a hurricane with mean wave heights of up to 16 m had developed in the eastern North Atlantic . On December 12, 1978 shortly after midnight, Munich had the last regular radio contact. During this conversation with the German passenger ship Caribe , several thousand nautical miles away , the radio officer of the Munich , Jörg Ernst, reported very bad weather and damage to the ship. Almost three hours later, the Greek cargo ship Marion received several very weak SOS calls from Munich .

Search operation

Triggered by these signals, one of the largest and longest international rescue operations began in the Atlantic north of the Azores , in which German, British, American and Portuguese search planes were also involved in addition to merchant ships.

The German Navy sent on December 14, a maritime patrol aircraft of the type Breguet Atlantic and imputed it to the competent British operations center in Land's End . Gradually, the number of German aircraft was temporarily increased to ten aircraft that operated from the US base Lajes Field in the Azores . In addition to Breguet Atlantic, Air Force Transall were used for logistical support.

All ships on the busy shipping route took part in the search and formed a wide-ranging search chain every five kilometers in order to search the largest possible area on the Atlantic. The search operation was led by Captain Pieter de Nijs on the Smit Rotterdam . At times, in addition to the aircraft, 31 merchant ships were also involved in the search.

Fragment of the lifeboat

The international search ended on December 20th. At the personal instruction of Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt , the German search operation continued until December 22, before all aircraft returned to their home bases. A total of 80 to 110 merchant ships and at least 13 aircraft took part in the search, with the German maritime patrol aircraft flying almost 500 hours on 38 flights. However, the Munich and its crew (28 people) were lost. Only three lighters , an empty, destroyed lifeboat and an emergency beacon as well as unused, partly oil-smeared life rafts were found .

causes

The construction of the ship and the few remains were carefully examined. The only evidence of the possible cause of the accident was provided by the Munich lifeboat , which was originally anchored at a height of twenty meters on the starboard side of the ship with metal bolts. These bolts were bent completely backwards, which indicated heavy breakers from the front. The cause and the course of the accident could never be clarified beyond doubt. The investigation at that time by the Bremerhaven maritime office , led by the average expert Werner Hummel, and more recent findings about so-called monster waves , however, allow the conclusion that Munich, which was equipped according to the then modern aspects, fell victim to one or more of these waves with a height of 25 to 35 m. Until they were directly detected in 1995, such waves were thought to be sailors' yarn . The ship had thereafter 50 degrees heavy list and was due to the failed electrics without drive and maneuver, and not beyond it to receive or able to radio messages with full power to send.

It probably sank only 33 hours later, but was fatally searched for in the wrong place (180 km too far north) due to incorrect position information (there was no GPS or satellite telephony at the time). It was therefore not possible to rescue the crew during this period. The exact sinking position and the location of the wreck are still unknown.

Since the ship's sinking, the traditional name of Munich has not been used by the Hapag-Lloyd shipping company. The sister ship operated under the name Bilderdyk until 1986 and then as Rhine Forest until December 2007 , before being scrapped in Chittagong on January 11, 2008 . In 1980 it nearly went under under similar conditions. Both ships took due to design with very heavy seas unpredictable (in the model but reproducible) " Green Water " in the area of the bridge in about 18 meters, which means it had damage such as torn bodies and indented discs by very severe wave impact possible. It is possible that the bridge near Munich was so destroyed that the crew sought refuge in the engine room in the stern.

literature

  • Lars Schmitz-Eggen: The last voyage of the “Munich”. Osterholz-Scharmbeck 2001.
  • Gerhard Simonsen: Lost in the North Atlantic. The mysterious downfall of the German LASH carrier "Munich". Hamburg 2000.
  • Peter Heimstaedt: The mysterious sinking of the “Munich” 30 years ago. In: Schiff & Hafen Heft 12/2008, pp. 106–109. Seehafen-Verlag, Hamburg 2008, ISSN  0938-1643 .
  • Peter Heimstaedt: sinking of the "München" - lost in the North Atlantic. In: Schiff & Hafen Heft 12/2003, p. 64, Seehafen-Verlag, Hamburg 2003.

Web links

Commons : Munich  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e Heinrich Busch: Seefunkstelle Lashcarrier Munich / DEAT. Retrieved June 11, 2011 .
  2. Wilhelm Reiss: The Navy and the search for the "Munich" . In: Marineforum 12-2009, p. 28 ff.
  3. The Monster Waves on the Sea - Ships in Distress ( Memento from February 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) in the Phoenix documentary in 2004 by Zoe Heron.