Oscar Huber
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The Oscar Huber is a side wheel - tugboat , considered today a museum ship in Vinckekanal in Duisburg-Ruhrort is. The ship is the last surviving paddle steamer on the Rhine and belongs to the Museum of German Inland Shipping at the railway port further north.
history
The side-wheel tugboat was built in Duisburg in 1921/22 at the Ewald Berninghaus shipyard for the HP Disch company in Duisburg-Ruhrort. It was initially called HP Disch VIII - Wilhelm von Oswald . After this shipping company was dissolved, the Raab Karcher shipping company took over the tug as RK XIV . From 1927 he was also called Fritz Thyssen , and since 1940 the ship has been called RK XIV-Oscar Huber .
In March 1945 the Oscar Huber was grounded by the Wehrmacht's own crew near Oberwesel , but was lifted again in 1946 and - without major repairs - put back into service in 1947.
In the years that followed, the number of paddle steamers on the Rhine gradually declined. Although the Oscar Huber's firing had been switched from coal to heating oil in 1955 , the ship turned out to be too expensive to operate. The last towing operation took place in 1966.
In 1968 an association was founded with the aim of keeping the Oscar Huber as the last paddle-wheel tugboat on the Rhine. This “Association for the Preservation of the Wheel Tow Steamer Oscar Huber e. V., Duisburg-Ruhrort ”, with the significant participation of the Raab Karcher company, it was initially possible to keep the wheeled boat in service as a passenger ship with a permitted number of 150 passengers for a further three years. The annual maintenance costs, however, quickly overwhelmed the financial strength of the association, so that a decommissioning and scrapping of the ship seemed inevitable.
Thanks to the commitment of the civic and political bodies, Oscar Huber became the property of the city of Duisburg with effect from October 1, 1971. After extensive overhaul and renovation work at the builder Berninghaus' shipyard in Cologne-Deutz , the wheeled boat was towed to Duisburg-Ruhrort in April 1973, where it was berthed in the mouth of the harbor near the Schifferbörse .
On May 19, 1974, the first Duisburg shipping museum was officially opened on board the Oscar Huber .
With the opening of the "Museum of German Inland Shipping Duisburg-Ruhrort" founded in 1977 in the premises of the former Ruhrort town hall on May 25, 1979, the ship lost its independence as a museum and was incorporated into the new shipping museum.
The paddle steamer Oscar Huber has to be rated as a technical and transport historical monument of the first order. It is the last original representative of a ship type that has made a significant contribution to the economic development of the Rhine river area over a period of more than 100 years through the rational transport of bulk goods.
When coal was still being fired, the crew consisted of a total of 15 men, including the captain, helmsman, helmsman, two machinists, three sailors, four to six stokers and the menageman who worked as a cook and was responsible for procuring provisions. After the conversion to heating oil there were only eight men on board: the captain, helmsman, helmsman, two machinists, two sailors and a menage man.
Conversions
A passage was created below deck on the port side, which enables the museum visitor to see the boiler rooms and engine rooms as a whole. There were also exhibition rooms in the foredeck (former crew quarters) as well as in the foredeck and stern in the earlier oil tanks. The captain's former living quarters have been converted into a meeting room.
Ship data
- Load capacity: approx. 200 t
- Anchors: bow anchor (stick anchor, 1280 kg), stern anchor (clip anchor, 710 kg), three emergency anchors on the bow: two stick anchors on port and starboard (1135 kg each) and one clip anchor (680 kg) on port.
- Length: 75 m (measured over bowsprit and rudder about 80 m)
- Width: 9 m (over deck) or 20.75 m (measured over the wheel arches).
- Draft: 1.55 m (when loaded).
- Engine: 3-cylinder piston steam engine (high, medium, low pressure) with an output of 1550 hp and a towing force of 5000–6000 tons. This corresponded to a tow of 5 - 7 barges, each of which was pulled from the tug with a special steel cable.
- Firing: until 1955 with coal, later with heavy heating oil, 4 boilers, from 1955 only 2 large boilers with a total heating surface of 500.50 m².
- Coal consumption for a trip from Duisburg-Ruhrort to Rotterdam and back (duration approx. 6 days): 70 tons.
- Heating oil consumption for a trip from Duisburg-Ruhrort to Karlsruhe and back (duration approx. 11 days: 60 - 70 tons).
- Chimney (chimney): diameter 1.50 m, height above deck 9.10 m, both chimneys could be moved if necessary, e.g. B. when crossing bridges during flooding.
- Wheel arches: width 5.60 m; Length 5.60 m.
- Bucket wheels: Seven buckets on each wheel. Width of the bucket wheel 5.20 m. The wheels ran at 33 revolutions per minute. The steam engine was driven by a 30 cm thick shaft.
Rope winches
Mooring winches
Steam anchor winch
Defectors on the quarterdeck
literature
- Tony Gibbons et al .: The world of ships , Bassermann Verlag , Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-8094-2186-3 , p. 197
Web links
- Who was Oscar Huber?
- Information about the ship
- The official Facebook page of Oscar Huber with a chronicle, picture gallery and events on board
Coordinates: 51 ° 27 ′ 5.9 ″ N , 6 ° 43 ′ 49.4 ″ E