Rhine ferry Koenigswinter

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Ferry ship Königswinter IV translating
Rhine ferry Koenigswinter IV, aerial photo (2015)

The Rhine ferry Königswinter is a car- Rhine ferry at river kilometer 645 between the city of Königswinter and Mehlem , a district of the Bonn district of Bad Godesberg . The ferry terminal on the right bank of the Rhine is on the Königswinterer Rheinallee, the one on the left bank of the Rhine at the end of Bad Godesberger Austraße (John-J.-McCloy-Ufer) south of the Deichmannsaue .

history

The ferry connection between Königswinter and Mehlem goes back at least to the 15th century, when it was operated with boats and shallows . A corresponding "ferry fairness" for Königswinter, which was owned by the sovereign , was probably first mentioned in a document on March 25, 1473 in a wisdom that has since disappeared . It stretched from the border between Königswinter and Niederdollendorf to Honnef or Rolandseck and the offshore islands. From a wisdom from 1558 and a document from 1739 it emerges that the Archbishop of Cologne had transferred half of the Königswinter ferry rights to the Bonn Cassius monastery and the Cologne monastery St. Aposteln . These refused in the form of the long lease four men as ferrymen ("Fährbeerbte") and owners of the ferry things with the ferry rights, i.e. the perception of the ferry service. At that time the ferry ran in Mehlem from a pier located at the level of the later Küster inn and in Königswinter from the ferry station "Am Fahr" ( ▼ ) north of the current intersection of Rheinallee and Hauptstrasse on the southern edge of Königswinter, where the ferrymen's accommodations were also located .

Third, wooden yaw ferry at Mehlemer pier (around 1890)

The ferry rights survived the French period (1794–1814) and the transition to Prussia (1815). In 1843 the ferry heirs received confirmation of their ferry rights from the Prussian government. In October 1844, on the ferry connection between Königswinter and Mehlem, with the establishment of the current ferry station, a yaw ferry made of wood and hung on a 200 m long iron chain was used for the first time. Two more ferries of the same type followed, until a yaw ferry with an iron hull was put into operation in 1893 . On May 12, 1900, today's operating company was established under the name “Rheinfähre Königswinter GmbH” with a share capital of 280,000 marks . In 1902, a steam ferry , which was christened "Königswinter I" and was the first on the Rhine, replaced the technology previously used. It was 32 meters long and nine meters wide. In April 1929 it was exchanged for a new ferry ("Königswinter II") from a shipyard in Bolnes , the Netherlands , which was both wider (12 m) and longer (40 m). After 1945, one or two sieve ferries also supported the operation at times .

After Petersberg became the seat of the Allied High Commission (AHK) at the seat of government in Bonn in 1949 , members of the commission were allowed to use the Rhine ferry Koenigswinter – Mehlem free of charge. From June 1949 half of its capacity was reserved for the purposes of the occupying forces. The ferry operators received a daily flat rate of 350 D-Marks as compensation . Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer used the ferry - which was then reserved for him alone - regularly during his tenure (1949–1963) to get from his place of residence on the right bank of the Rhine, Rhöndorf, to his place of employment, Bonn, on the left bank of the Rhine . In 1957 the ferry "Königswinter II" was strengthened by two MWM motors as part of a renovation. A new, additional ferry ("Königswinter III"), which was manufactured in the Oberwinter shipyard Clausen , was added in November 1960. In June 1961 there was a ship accident with six fatalities, in which a night-time ferry boat ("Kriemhild") belonging to the Rheinfähre Königswinter GmbH rammed a goods ship moving upstream and capsized. As a result, the ferry's night trips were discontinued. In 1987 the ferry "Königswinter II" was decommissioned, so that the "Königswinter III" continued to operate the ferry until 1997.

After the “Königswinter II” was decommissioned as a ferry, the ship was converted into a passenger ship and ship's restaurant in 1990. In Rotterdam , Chinese craftsmen rebuilt the ferry using Chinese materials in six months. It was put into operation under the name "Ocean City" and since then it has been located on the right bank of the Rhine at a jetty in Bonn-Beuel , a little south of the Kennedy Bridge . At the beginning of 2004 there was a change of operator in which the interior was modernized. Since then, the ship has operated under the name "Ocean Paradise". One-hour “panorama trips” were occasionally carried out in the Bonn city area, which were discontinued in April 2012 because the ship's certificate was no longer valid at that time and will no longer be extended after a change in the law. Since then, the ship has been firmly anchored at the mooring. In Bonn, the ship is known as the "Chinaschiff".

Today's operation

Today the ferry company is largely privately owned as Rheinfähre Königswinter GmbH and has its headquarters in Königswinterer Meerkatzstraße. The current ferry "Königswinter IV", in 1996 in two halves as construction no. 144 built in the Mondorf-based Lux shipyard , has been in service since February 1997. With a length of 46 meters and a width of 20 meters and a draft of 0.92 m, it is significantly larger than all previous ferries, is operated by four engines and has a capacity of around 40 cars and 500 people. The ferry is (like "Königswinter II" and "Königswinter III") designed as a side port ship, in which the transported vehicles and passengers are taken on board via two side gates and ramps. Unlike the “Königswinter II”, the “Königswinter IV” allows all vehicles to drive up and down without maneuvering. In 2013, the ferry's engines and exhaust system were replaced and replaced with more modern, lower-emission and quieter ones. The four engines each have an output of 182 kW (approx. 250 hp).

Today, the ferry runs an average of eight times an hour and continuously daily until 9:50 p.m., on working days from 5:45 a.m., on Sundays and public holidays from 7:45 a.m. The ferry docks are barred jetties that have separate access for pedestrians and cyclists and can be moved depending on the water level, on the Königswinter side along a ramp that is parallel to the Rhine and sloping down the Rhine and on the Mehlemer side at right angles to the Rhine to Austraße. In the event of extreme high and low tide, ferry traffic must be stopped.

literature

  • Gustav Hofmann; Association for Home Care and Home History Bad Godesberg eV (Ed.): About the ferries in the Bonn and Bad Godesberg area, 2nd part. In: Godesberger Heimatblätter. Issue 44. Bad Godesberg 2006, ISSN  0436-1024 , pp. 17-39.
  • Gustav Hofmann; Association for Home Care and Home History Bad Godesberg eV (Ed.): About the ferries in the Bonn and Bad Godesberg area, 1st part. In: Godesberger Heimatblätter. Issue 43. Bad Godesberg 2005, ISSN  0436-1024 , pp. 29-36. [not yet evaluated for this article]
  • Heinz Willi Fleischhacker: The history of the Rhine ferries. Bad Honnef 2013 ( online ).

Web links

Commons : Rhine ferry Koenigswinter  - collection of pictures

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Gustav Hofmann; Association for Home Care and Home History Bad Godesberg eV (Ed.): About the ferries in the Bonn and Bad Godesberg area, 2nd part.
  2. ↑ Peter Bläser: A reflection on the history of the ferry system between Bad Godesberg and Niederdollendorf. (PDF; 252 kB) Bad Godesberg 1992, p. 24.
  3. ↑ a b c Angelika Schyma : City of Königswinter. (= Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany , monuments in the Rhineland , volume 23.5.) Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1992, ISBN 3-7927-1200-8 , p. 33.
  4. ↑ a b Participation Report 2005 (PDF download; 204 kB) City of Königswinter, December 31, 2005, accessed on February 11, 2016 .
  5. ↑ Helmut Vogt : Guardians of the Bonn Republic: The Allied High Commissioners 1949–1955 , Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2004, ISBN 3-506-70139-8 , pp. 47, 222.
  6. ^ No Money , Der Spiegel , December 4, 1967
  7. ↑ Ship on chinaschiff.de
  8. ↑ Ocean Paradise on the General-Scoreboard website
  9. ↑ The Chinaschiff from the Rhine sits on the ground on the website of the General-Anzeiger , November 26th, 2011
  10. ↑ New engines for the "Königswinter IV" , General-Anzeiger , April 3, 2013
  11. ↑ faehre-koenigswinter.de

Coordinates: 50 ° 40 ′ 18.4 "  N , 7 ° 11 ′ 25.4"  E