Nikola Vaptzarov (ship, 1976)

**Nikola Vaptzarov**
	Model of the Nikola Vaptzarov
Ship data
flag	Bulgaria
Ship type	Cargo ship / training ship
Callsign	LZDI
home port	Varna
Shipping company	Navigation Maritime Bulgarians , Varna
Shipyard	Stocznia Szczecińska im. Adolfa Warskiego , Szczecin
Build number	B80-6 / 12
Launch	23rd December 1975
Commissioning	July 29, 1976
Whereabouts	7 October 2003 Aliağa scrapped
Ship dimensions and crew
length	122.1 m ( Lüa )
width	17.0 m
Draft	Max. 7.4 m
measurement	5975 BRT; 2327 NRT
crew	48, plus 15 teachers, 159 cadets
Machine system
machine	1 × five cylinder Cegielski - Sulzer - diesel engine
Machine ; performance	5500 hp
Top ; speed	16.0 kn (30 km / h)
propeller	1
Transport capacities
Load capacity	5655 dw
Volume	5553 m³
Others
Registration ; numbers	IMO number: 7500827

The Nikola Vaptzarov ( Bulgar . Никола Вапцаров ) was a training ship of the type Stocznia Szczecinska B-80 built in 1976 . The Bulgarian shipping company Navigation Maritime Bulgare , the Naval Academy in Warna , other universities and schools use it to train young seafarers. In 2003 it was scrapped.

Construction and technical data

At the request of the Soviet merchant navy, the Polish shipyard Stocznia Szczecińska im. At the end of the 1960s, Adolfa Warskiego developed the type B-80, a cargo-carrying training ship for officer training, of which she initially built nine units for export to the Soviet Union . Since the type proved to be successful, two more ships followed for Poland and one each for Romania and Bulgaria.

The twelfth unit of the series, which belonged to the sixth series, was intended for the navigation Maritime Bulgarians . It was on 30 September 1975 to the shipyard in Szczecin under the hull number B80-6 / 12 laid Kiel . When it was launched on December 23, 1975, it was named the second Bulgarian ship after the poet Nikola Wapzarow . The first Nikola Vaptzarow (IMO 5251159) was a cargo ship built in Belgium in 1949, which gave its name to the new training ship in 1976 and was renamed Baltchik .

The ship was 122.1 meters long, 17.0 meters wide and had a draft of 7.4 meters. It was measured with 5975 GRT or 2327 NRT and had a load capacity of 5655 tons. A five-cylinder Cegielski - Sulzer - diesel engine generated 5500 bhp and 5576 PS and enabled via a screw speed of 16.0 knots . The range was 8,000 nautical miles. The total capacity of the cargo holds was 5194 cubic meters for general cargo or 5553 cubic meters for bulk cargo, plus a cooling room with 312 cubic meters, which could be cooled down to −18 degrees Celsius. There were several cranes on board: In addition to two light loading booms with a load capacity of 5 tons and another with a load capacity of 10 tons, the ship had a heavy duty boom of 30 tons and an additional loading crane for 5 tons. The crew consisted of 48 men, plus 15 teachers and 159 cadets.

history

With the commissioning of the new building on July 29, 1976, Varna became the ship's home port. Although the Nikola Vaptzarow was managed by the local Navigation Maritime Bulgarian and used for its own training purposes, the ship was also available for all maritime and technical training courses. Users were also the Naval Academy in Warna , the Technical University of Warna , the Technical School for Shipbuilding and Seafaring Varna and the School for Sea Fisheries. In addition, the Nikola Vaptzarow had two separate training rooms for navigation, a separate one for machines, two classrooms for a total of 78 people and an on-board school library. Several thousand Bulgarian seamen have been trained on it over the 25 years of service as a training ship.

During the training trips , the Nikola Vaptzarow was also used as a normal cargo ship. From its commissioning until 1992, it mainly served the connection between Bulgaria and Western European ports. On one of these voyages in January 1978, she rescued 21 sailors from the 43-strong crew of the Soviet ship Ivan Sechenov , which sank after a collision with another ship in the Sea of Marmara . After 1992, trips to the Mediterranean and cruises in the Black Sea were the main routes. In the years 1999 to 2000 the ship reached the coast of Djibouti in East Africa.

For the shipping company, which had to face increased competition after the upheavals in Eastern Europe, maintaining the ship became increasingly difficult. In 2003 she decommissioned Nikola Vaptzarow , which was scrapped in Aliağa on October 7, 2003 .

Trivia

Several documentaries and feature films were shot on board the Nikola Vaptzarov : In the summer of 1989, the Bulgarian director Maya Vaptsarova shot the documentary “Trust” (Bulgarian: “Вяра”) about the poet Nikola Wapzarow. The title is borrowed from the poem of the same name by Nikola Wapzarow. Ten years later, in 1999, scenes from the French drama Est-Ouest were filmed on the ship, which received an Oscar nomination in 2000 .

literature

Ambrose Greenway: Comecon Merchant Ships , [Publisher] Kenneth Mason, Emsworth / Hampshire, 4th Edition 1989, ISBN 0-85937-349-5 .
Bruno Bock, Klaus Bock: The red merchant fleets. The merchant ships of the COMECON countries , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1977, ISBN 3-7822-0143-4 .
Jan Piwowoński: Flota spod biało-czerwonej [Fleet under white and red] , Nasza Księgarnia Publishing House, Warsaw 1989, ISBN 83-10-08902-3 .
Chronicle of the shipping company "Navigation Maritime Bulgare" , Navibulgar news December 2012 – January 2013 (Bulgarian), ISSN 1313-8944 ( online version as PDF ), accessed on July 22, 2020