Rabenfels (ship, 1977)
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The ConRo ship Rabenfels was laid down on January 17, 1977 at the Japanese shipyard Sasebo Heavy Industries Ltd., in Sasebo , as the lead ship of the Rabenfels- class , a series of four ships, floated on March 31, 1977 and floated in July 1977 delivered to the DDG Hansa in Bremen .
history
The DDG Hansa ConRo ships of the Rabenfels class were intended for use between European ports and ports on the Persian Gulf. Two of the ships were built by Sasebo in Japan, two by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft AG in Kiel.
The Rabenfels was initially to be given the name Rappenfels , because at the time of construction the DDG Hansa had another Rabenfels in service with the last ship of the Lichtenfels class .
On June 2, 1980, the Rabenfels was on its way through the Mediterranean when a leak in a fuel line caused an engine room fire. One crew member was killed and others injured. Two months later, on August 18, 1980, the ship was still being repaired when the German Steamship Company "Hansa" filed for bankruptcy.
After the completion of the machine repairs on September 1, the Rabenfels was on hold until it was sold to the Kapitalanlage- und Vermögensverwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Bremen on October 10, 1980 and was then put into liquidation for DDG Hansa . Shortly afterwards, the ship was launched in Baltimore, with the shipping company Christian F. Ahrenkiel from Hamburg being looked after. Already in January 1981 the Rabenfels were sold to Lykes Lines from New Orleans, which continued to operate the ship as Cygnus until 1988 .
Lykes passed the Cygnus on in October 1988 to Cygnus Management Incorporated in the Bahamas, who renamed it ASL Cygnus and had it managed by Fednav Offshore Incorporated in St. John's, Canada. From 1989 the ship ran under the charter name Thekwini .
In 1993 the United States Department of Transportation acquired the ship and assigned it to the United States Maritime Administration (MARAD) in Norfolk. This operates the ship until today as Cape Taylor (T-AKR 113). The ship is currently part of the National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF) and can be operational within five days.
Loading space arrangement
The Rabenfels has three continuous decks with a total lane length of a good 2,200 meters. A total of 180 40-foot trailers can be accommodated in these lanes. An additional 422 TEU or a further 72 trailers can be transported on the outer deck . The most important part of the on-board transhipment facility is a three-section Navire stern ramp, 35 meters long and seven meters wide, which can be swiveled horizontally by 33 degrees. Unlike the sister ships built in Germany with a MacGregor ramp, this one has a mast with a movable spreader. The ramp is designed for a maximum load of 160 tons and is used for loading and unloading at quay heights up to 2.10 meters below and four meters above the level of the lanes of the ship's deck. In addition, the ship has two side ports and a mobile gantry crane on deck.
technology
The Rabe rock as the main drive has two nine-cylinder MAN Diesel engines of the type 9L 52 / 55A at a speed of 450 revolutions per minute, which acted via a transmission to a four-bladed propeller. The propeller rotates at 128 revolutions per minute.
Sister ships
The sister ships are the Rauenfels , Reichenfels and Rheinfels .
literature
- Hans Georg Prager: DDG Hansa - From liner service to special shipping . Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1976, ISBN 3-7822-0105-1 .
- Shipping yearbook 1979 . transpress VEB publishing house for transport, Berlin 1979