Rhine pilot
A Rhine traffic controller is a skipper with the ability to drive a barge with its own motive power (Rhine navigation patent ) with special knowledge of a section of track on the Rhine , for which he his pilot license acquired. There were pilots on the Middle Rhine until the end of the 1980s, on the Upper Rhine between Iffezheim and Mannheim they are still used occasionally today.
General and historical
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The term pilot was first included in a Prussian law, the regulation on pilotage on the Rhine within Prussia , on June 24, 1844. Before that they were called the helmsman. Since the Middle Rhine was left largely natural as a shipping route, in contrast to the Moselle, for example , the fairway changes constantly. In the mountain range, the river had the greatest gradient, the strongest current and dangerous cliffs. At the Loreley , the river was originally 113 m wide and 25 m deep until the extensive expansion measures from the 1970s. Today the narrowest point is about 145/150 m wide. A stretch near Bacharach was called “ the wild danger ”. Precise knowledge of the location and the current was therefore required to guide the ships , tugs with barges and especially passenger ships . Therefore, the use of local pilots was common. In 1950 there were pilot stations in Bingen , Rüdesheim , Kaub , St. Goar ( Wahrschauer and pilot museum), Oberspay , Koblenz , Urmitz and even Cologne .
That increasingly changed with the expansion of the fairways through increased dredging of the sand and gravel entered and through the demolition of the rock barriers, for example at Binger Loch (until 1974), but also through the increase in engine power and the introduction of modern ship guidance technology, for example using radar , so that the use of pilots was no longer necessary. There was never a compulsory pilotage, as many smaller private individuals , i.e. self-propelled ship owners, were also familiar with the area. Anyone who needed a pilot indicated this by setting the pilot flag. Those who used pilots the longest to protect ships and passengers were the Cologne-Düsseldorf passenger ships. Most recently there were stations in Bingen, Kaub and St. Goar.
A special feature was the boycott of French ships after the First World War , whereupon France set up its own Stations de Pilote , which were only given up again in 1964 by contract between the parties involved and the Pilotes were incorporated into the German associations.
In 1950/1960, the Kauber Lotsengenossenschaft was the largest on the Rhine with over 100 pilots and four pilot boats (one each in Bingen and St. Goarshausen). On May 31, 1988 , the last pilot station, Kaub, was closed. The last Kauber pilot, Karl Kilp, born in 1927, wrote a book about this bygone time with Willi Kimpel, who also comes from a family of sailors (first edition 1993). Even after 1988, when the water levels were extremely low, there were still occasional requests from pilots. The majority of pilots retired when they had enough savings, or hired themselves out as inland navigation operators or had to try to find another profession.
The former pilot associations have merged to form the Middle Rhine Association of pilot communities in Bingen, Kaub and St. Goar / Rhine with headquarters in Kaub. In their association they dedicate themselves to maintaining tradition and maintain small museums in their stations. Pictures and ship models are exhibited in the Kauber Station. A larger exhibition can be seen in the Wahrschauer- und Lotsenmuseum in St. Goar.
organization
The pilots were independent entrepreneurs united in cooperatives . Each pilot preferably served his regular customers, whom he expected after listening to the "Schifffahrtsnachrichten" on the radio with binoculars at the window of his house with a view of the Rhine and then at the pilot station. The younger ones had to take what was left. The cooperative paid and organized the pilot boat , fast and strong boat of pilotage, the pilots for the ship returned and from the ship, and the Lotsenbus, bringing back the pilots from the end of the pilot route back to the pilot station. Each local cooperative had to operate a certain traditional route: The Kauber piloted from Kaub "to the mountain" to Bingen and down to the valley to St. Goarshausen . The St. Goarer only to Berg from St. Goar originally to Oberwesel and later to Kaub and the Binger only "to the valley" to Kaub. That only made sense if one gave priority to responding to different sailing behavior of the ship and different flow behavior of the current over free enterprise. Before the age of the fast motor boats , every pilot had to row to the ship with his sloop, the so-called “Schlupp”, a small “one-man boat” and then after the pilot route “in tow” of a ship or to the valley with his own Power back with the boat.
education
Every applicant for the pilotage profession had to become a skipper first, that is, he first drove as a cabin boy , after passing the bosun's test as a sailor on a barge on the Rhine and its tributaries. When he was 23 years old at the earliest, he was able to register as a candidate for the state examination for the Rhine skipper's license to operate ships with their own propulsion . After this exam, the actual pilot training began. It lasted about a year and included at least 200 training trips as a pilot candidate alongside an "experienced" pilot on his route. The pilot's license test for the route on which he had learned was taken in front of an official from the Bingen Waterways and Shipping Office and two assistant pilot test masters from the local pilotage association . Of course, the pilot candidate also had to be innocent.
Legal position and commitment on the Upper Rhine
On the Upper Rhine , shipping on the non- canalised route between Iffezheim and Mannheim occasionally uses pilots who are familiar with the route. Legally they are called "auxiliary ship captains".
- There is no compulsory pilotage.
- On the Upper Rhine, the pilotage regulations for the Rhine between Basel and Mannheim / Ludwigshafen of June 15, 1956 (Federal Law Gazette II S 703), in the version of August 27, 1968 (Federal Law Gazette II p. 813) as well as the regulation on fees apply for the services of inland pilots on the federal waterway Rhine between Iffezheim and Mannheim from June 1, 2001 (VkBl. 2001 , page 310)
- On the routes above Iffezheim to Basel and below the route mentioned, as well as "in the mountains" (Middle Rhine), pilots are no longer required.
- Of the freelance in support of the skipper or as a substitute skipper pilots are unständig employed boatmen to distinguish if they have a Rhine navigation license, be taken as a sailor to complete the crew on board (help people). These inland navigation operators are not pilots in the sense of the pilotage regulations, they do not hold any pilotage patents.
Since the pilotage has no real future here either, there is a lack of offspring. On March 21, 2009, it was reported that a 74-year-old pilot fell into the water on the Upper Rhine while entering the ship.
Pilots in Switzerland
In 2008 there were still five pilots on the Swiss section of the Rhine between Basel and Birsfelden . They all lived in Kleinhüningen and take turns on standby. The Rhine boat license is not valid in Switzerland. The skippers with the Rhine patent are only allowed to drive as far as the Dreirosenbrücke in Basel and if you want to continue, you have to take a Swiss pilot with the Basel patent on board for the 9 km long route to Birsfelden and the locks that start there . Of course, the traffic here is no longer so dense, around two to ten ships a day want to cross the dangerous bend in the Rhine with its treacherous currents and the narrow Middle Bridge .
Individual evidence
- ^ Wilhelm Kimpel: The helmsmen and pilots on the mountain stretch of the Middle Rhine with their stations in Bingen, Kaub and St. Goar p. 53
- ↑ According to Baedeker: Köln und die Rheinlande (1953), p. 271, in other tourist publications 90 m, the width of the fairway, is reported
- ↑ Telephone information of the traffic center Oberwesel the Water and Shipping Authority Bingen on the local knowledge User: FRILa
- ↑ Karl Baedeker : Cologne and the Rhineland , travel guide, Hamburg 1953, p. 26
- ↑ Short version by Kimpel on piloting on the mountain routes at schifferverein-beuel ( memento of March 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), p. 4.
- ^ Association of pilot associations
- ↑ Kauber pilot station
- ↑ Wahrschauer- und Lotsenmuseum for regional history (no link, no website)
- ↑ Lotsenordnung Oberrhein (With training regulations; PDF file; 56 kB) (Accessed Dec. 2010)
- ^ Basler Lotsen (NZZ from Nov. 13, 2004, accessed Dec. 2015)
- ↑ Basellandschaftliche Zeitung on the Basler Rheinlotsen from October 12, 2012
literature
- Wilhelm Kimpel: The helmsmen and pilots on the mountain stretch of the Middle Rhine with their stations in Bingen, Kaub and St. Goar. 2nd edition, Kaub 1999, ISBN 3-929866-04-8 .
See also
- True sight on the Middle Rhine with a reference to the museum
- Pilot mainly deals with sea pilots
- Pilot (seafaring) also has international references (each with web links)
