Magdeburg (ship, 1958)
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The Magdeburg was a general cargo ship of the Deutsche Seereederei (DSR), which collided with the Japanese freighter Yamashiro Maru on October 27, 1964 in the Thames estuary and then capsized.
history
The Magdeburg was built in 1957/58 in the GDR at the Warnow shipyard in Warnemünde . The launch took place on December 22, 1957, and on October 31, 1958, the ship under construction number 307 was handed over to the shipping company VEB Deutsche Seereederei (DSR) in Rostock and put into service. She was the seventh of 15 Type IV series ships. During the maiden voyage to Asia and back, there were already some accidents, after which, among other things, the Danish shipyard Burmeister & Wain in Copenhagen had to be approached.
During the second voyage from Antwerp to Shanghai and back, phone calls were made to home via Norddeich Radio for test purposes while crossing the Sunda Strait between the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java . There have been repeated reports of technical problems arising from the machine configuration. On December 23, 1960, a sailor went overboard and drowned. In April 1961, the Magdeburg collided with the steamer Leo on the Thames due to an evasive mistake .
The collision
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On the morning of October 27, 1964, the Magdeburg was under the command of Captain Artur Maul, later for many years General Director of the Combine Maritime Transport and Port Management (KSH), on her departure in the Thames estuary. In the London borough of Dagenham , the ship had previously taken Leyland- brand buses on board at Williams Wharf 42 for the Cuban capital Havana . 19 buses were stowed in the hatches, the rest on deck. The Magdeburg cast off around 00:30 a.m. Fog travel was ordered because there was light fog with visibility of about one nautical mile , which had improved to two nautical miles at 01.23 a.m. The pilot therefore suggested going to full speed, which corresponded to a speed of around ten knots. At 1:36 am, the Broadness Point beacon was passed. The rudder was on the recommendation of the pilot on starboard placed 10 ° to the fairway arc to follow Broad Ness. Around this time the oncoming enemy collision later, the Yamashiro Maru , came into view, the lights of which moved to port. In order to enable the Japanese ship to the port to pass unhindered, the rudder of the Magdeburg was placed on starboard 20 ° and a short tone was given with the typhon to announce the change of course. The Yamashiro Maru, for her part, still did not initiate a starboard maneuver to follow the fairway around Broadness. On the Magdeburg the rudder was now set to starboard 30 °. At a distance of about two cable lengths , the danger of a collision on the Magdeburg was recognized, and as a last-minute maneuver , the engines were ordered to return full speed and the rudder was placed amidships . At 1:40 a.m. the Yamashiro Maru ran at an acute angle into the starboard side of the Magdeburg and hit it at the level of the bridge structure .
After the ships had separated again, the Magdeburg quickly got a list and threatened to sink. Immediately after the collision, the pilot station in the port of Gravesend was informed and tugs were called in for assistance. The crew left the ship at around 3.10 a.m. and was taken over by a tug lying ready. It was still possible to maneuver the ship into the shallower bank area. It eventually capsized there, but did not sink completely.
After the collision
In 1965 the Harms Bergung company from Cuxhaven succeeded in erecting the Magdeburg and bringing it to a dry dock in Tilbury . The damaged ship was sold to a Greek shipping company , and on December 13, 1965 the temporarily repaired Magdeburg left London in tow. On December 17, 1965, the ship leaked in a storm and sank about 20 nautical miles from Brest at position 48 ° 13 ′ N , 5 ° 10 ′ W .
Investigation and verdict of the sea chamber
The sea chamber of the GDR investigated the case for over a year. On April 25, 1966, she announced her verdict, in which she stated, among other things, that the ship's command of the Yamashiro Maru was violating Article 25 of the collision prevention rules in the 1960 version, which corresponds to the shipping regulations for the Thames, by navigating the wrong side of the fairway would have. This Port of London Act requires particular caution when passing ships and has not been observed by the Yamashiro Maru . It was also found that the Yamashiro Maru was sailing on the wrong side of the fairway and had given course change signals, which she subsequently failed to carry out. This gave rise to misconceptions among the Magdeburg ship's command , which was therefore unable to recognize the danger of the collision earlier. According to the sea chamber statement, the captain and the officer on watch were “not to blame for this marine casualty”.
Looted the encryption documents of the motor ship
After the Magdeburg stranded in British territorial waters, frogmen from the British secret service are said to have stolen encryption documents from the ship in order to decrypt intercepted encrypted radio messages afterwards.
Rumor of a sinking by the CIA
About ten years after the collision, in the spring of 1975, an article in The Washington Post reported on what was going on inside the US intelligence agency, the CIA. Evidence was given that the collision had been prepared by the CIA in order to prevent the USD 12 million export deal and thus enforce the US economic embargo on Cuba .
literature
- Neumann, Manfred; Strobel, Dietrich: From the cutter to the container ship . Ships from GDR shipyards in text and images. 1st edition. VEB Verlag Technik, Berlin 1981 ( order number : 552 917 8).
- Padfield, Peter: An Agony of Collisions . Hodder and Stoughton, London 1966.
- Buttkus, Detlefsen, Kramer: German shipping companies . tape 23 VEB Deutsche Seereederei Rostock . Verlag Gert Uwe Detlefsen, Bad Segeberg and Cuxhaven 2004, ISBN 3-928473-81-6 , p. 108 .