Minerva (ship, 1834)
.JPG)
The Minerva was the first steam- powered ship on Lake Zurich and the first with an iron shell in Europe. It was also the first scheduled use of a steamship on the European continent. The first trip took place on July 19, 1835. The name made reference to the goddess Minerva .
Construction and commissioning
The contract for the construction of the Minerva was placed by the two entrepreneurs Franz Carl Caspar, founder of the “Dampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft für den Bodensee und Rhein”, and Johann Jakob Lämmlin, an expert in the technical field, who previously ran the company “Caspar and Lämmlin, entrepreneurs of steam shipping on the Zürcher- und Walensee »had founded. The ship was built by the William Fairbairn machine works in Manchester . In November 1834 the steamship left the English east coast under the name Vulkan and reached Mannheim, Basel and Kaiseraugst via the North Sea and the Rhine. There it was dismantled and transported to Lake Zurich by cart.
After assembly took place on 20 June 1835 in the "wooden ski jump" on today's Utoquai in Zurich the launch ; then the interior was completed and the ship was renamed Minerva . The invited guests gathered on July 19, 1835 to the thunder of cannons and bells on the Bauschänzli in Zurich for the maiden voyage of the Minerva. Exactly at 11 o'clock she set off for her first trip to Rapperswil and reached her destination two hours later, where a “ brilliant lunch with music and dancing took place. At 6 o'clock in the evening the same thing left Rapperswil, landed happily at the Bauschanze at around 8 o'clock and was greeted with general cheers ”. The “Zürcherische Freitagzeitung” reported on the maiden voyage: “ The white and green flag [the coat of arms of the canton of St. Gallen] swelled, the steam began to work with an actual roaring roar, like the voice of a monster; a command word, the ship made a turn and then drove fast as an arrow right through the middle of the lake, until one gradually lost sight of it. »
As early as July 20, 1835, the “Minerva” began her regular trips on the Zurich – Rapperswil route. There were landing stages only in Zurich and Rapperswil: Anyone who wanted to get on or off during the journey was taken to the ship or to the shore in a boat.
Critical voices said that the invention could not be trusted, that one was not sure for a moment " whether the cauldron would burst and blow up all the glory ". Just three days after the maiden voyage, a harmless incident occurred when some pieces of wood lying near the boiler caught fire - until 1855 the steamers on Lake Zurich were only fired with wood, until 1868 they were partially fired. The helmsman drove to the bank immediately to reassure the passengers.
Although the commercial success was limited at first, the first journey of the «Minerva» marked the beginning of a new era in transportation. Just two years later, the next steamer started operating on Lake Zurich. In 1839 the Minvera was relocated to the Walensee for further voyages and replaced by the “Republikaner” steamer.
Technical specifications
The Minerva, later named Splügen , was 33.6 m long and 4.8 m wide. The ship offered space for around 500 people. It covered around 30 kilometers from Zurich to Rapperswil in two hours and thus reached a speed of 15 km / h . The wood consumption was about five fathoms of fir wood, about 15 cubic meters; To imagine the energetic efficiency of that time, this corresponds to the energetic content of around 5,000 l diesel oil. The steamer was equipped with two high-pressure engines of 25 HP (18.4 kW) each.
See also
literature
- Kurt Hunziker, Robert Knöpfel (Hrsg.): The Zürichsee-Schifffahrt . History and stories from 1835 to today. Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 2014, ISBN 978-3-03823-865-2 , p. 27-30 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Company history William Fairbairn & Sons
- ↑ Zürichsee-Schiffahrtsgesellschaft: The Chronology of the ZSG.
- ↑ a b c d e Hundred Years. Pictures from the history of the city of Zurich from 1814–1914 . Zurich 1914/1915.
