Rio Negro (ship, 1905)

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Rio Negro
as City of Palermo in 1921
as City of Palermo in 1921
Ship data
flag German EmpireThe German Imperium German Empire United Kingdom
United KingdomUnited Kingdom (trade flag) 
other ship names

City of Palermo

Ship type Combined ship
home port Hamburg
Liverpool
Owner Hamburg-Süd
Ellerman Lines
Shipyard Joh. C. Tecklenborg , Geestemünde
Build number 201
Launch February 20, 1905
Commissioning April 19, 1905
Whereabouts Sold for demolition in 1933
Ship dimensions and crew
length
114.6 m ( Lüa )
110.1 m ( Lpp )
width 14.3 m
measurement 4613 GRT
 
crew 64 men
Machine system
machine Triple expansion machine
Machine
performance 		2200 hp
Top
speed 		11 kn (20 km / h)
propeller 1
Transport capacities
Load capacity 5750 dw
Permitted number of passengers   50 2nd class
230 between deck

The Rio Negro of the Hamburg-South American Steamship Company (HSDG) came into service as the second ship of the Rio class of the Hamburg shipping company in 1905 for the shipping company's southern Brazil service. The shipping company procured three ships of this type from the Tecklenborg shipyard in Geestemünde, which, however, did not prove themselves on the planned route. They were therefore used in northern Brazil from 1906.

In the late summer of 1914, the Rio Negro became the auxiliary ship of the small cruiser SMS  Karlsruhe , which sank on November 4, 1914 due to an internal explosion.
The Rio Negro took over the 146 survivors of the cruiser and reached Kiel with them on December 6th. From the end of March 1917, the ship was used as Sperrbrecher 11 , then Sperrbrecher 1 , by the Imperial Navy .

In March 1919 the Rio Negro was delivered to Great Britain. It was last used as the City of Palermo for Ellerman Lines in the Africa service before it was sold to Italy for demolition in 1933.

History of construction and use

Starting in 1904, Hamburg-Süd procured three small emigrant ships especially for service to Brazil, which were given names starting with Rio , which differ from the usual naming . The three ships carried out their maiden voyages from Hamburg to Rio Grande (Rio Grande do Sul) . The type ship Rio Grande began service in February 1904. Since 1893, Hamburg Süd had procured eight special steamers with shallow drafts (barre steamers) for this service, the first three of which were sold again after a short period of service and the last two were re-registered in 1904 for the new Patagonia service to Buenos Aires and flied the Argentine flag. After advertising for emigration to Brazil had been banned for decades, the lifting of the advertising ban and the establishment of the Hanseatic Colonization Society had led to a sharp increase in emigration, particularly to the state of Santa Catarina .

The Rio Negro was launched as the second ship in the series on February 20, 1905 at Joh. C. Tecklenborg in Geestemünde . Like the previous type ship, it had two masts, a chimney and space for 50 first class passengers and 230 between deck passengers. The service speed of the Rio steamers was 11 knots. After delivery to the shipping company on April 19, her maiden voyage from Hamburg to Rio Grande began on April 29, 1905.
The Rio Pardo, the third ship in the series, was launched on May 20, 1905, but was transferred to the partner in the joint service, Hapag , and renamed Dalmatia before delivery . It was under this name that she began her maiden voyage to Rio Grande on September 1, 1905.
The three ships did not prove themselves on the journey over the bar in front of Rio Grande. Nevertheless, Hamburg-Süd bought back the Dalmatia on June 21, 1906 and used it under the name Rio Pardo until 1914 together with the two sister ships in the North-Brazil service, where they were usually only used as cargo ships. For the Rio Grande service, five Santa steamers of the 5th series came into service between 1908 and 1912 , which were over 3700 GRT in size and were supplied as pure freight steamers by Rostocker AG Neptun , the Bremer Vulkan shipyard and the Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft were.

When the First World War broke out, only the Rio Pardo was at home. The sister ships Rio Grande and Rio Negro sought refuge in the Brazilian port of Belém (Pará) .

Auxiliary ship of SMS Karlsruhe

At the end of August 1914, the Rio Negro from the stage in Brazil was assigned to the small cruiser SMS  Karlsruhe as an auxiliary ship. At the beginning of September it reached the cruiser that operated off the Brazilian coast and was operated by the Hapag steamer Patagonia (3016 BRT, from Saint Thomas ), the Asuncion (4665 BRT, from Santos ) of the HSDG and the NDL steamer Crefeld (3829 BRT, from Rio de Janeiro ). On September 3, 1914, the Rio Negro was first involved in the seizure of a British steamer, when she formed a reconnaissance patrol with the cruiser and the Asuncion and so the Maple Branch was made 120 miles north of Fernando de Noronha . The Asuncion also met the auxiliary cruiser SMS Kronprinz Wilhelm at the beginning of September .
After the arrival of the Rio Negro and the return of the Asuncion , the Patagonia was released to Brazil. After bringing in eleven more ships, the Crefeld was released on October 13th and reached Santa Cruz de Tenerife on October 22nd with 419 prisoners . In addition to the German suppliers, the Karlsruhe used prizes with coal cargo at least temporarily as auxiliary ships. As a rule, they searched the shipping lanes with an auxiliary ship offset on each side in order to enlarge the reconnaissance strip and thus brought in five ships in September and a further nine in October.
On October 26, 1914, the Karlsruhe sunk the last ship was the Lamport & Holt Line's passenger steamer Vandy (c) k (10,328 GRT, 1911, 15 knots, for 200 passengers) , which had 210 passengers on board. With this she had raised 17 ships with a total of 76,609 GRT. The crews still remaining with the association and the passengers of the captured ships were then released to Belém on the Asuncion at the end of October.

The Karlsruhe now wanted to march to the island of Barbados , where further ships were to be hijacked. The remaining escort ships Rio Negro and the Prize Indrani (5706 GRT, 1912) sailed with her . The prospects of a successful coup against the island were good, as there was no longer a British warship in their vicinity.

On November 4, 1914 at 6:30 p.m. east of the island of Trinidad , at the position 11 ° 7 '  N , 55 ° 25'  W , a very violent explosion occurred in the forecastle and the cruiser sank in just 27 minutes. 263 men, including the commander, were killed. 146 survivors were rescued from the Rio Negro and the Indrani , which ran to the Tesigos Islands under the leadership of the cruiser's chief officer, Lieutenant Captain Ferdinand Studt.

Home travel of the Rio Negro and further missions

The Indrani, which was also known as the coal steamer KD II or Hope , was emptied and sunk on November 9th before the Rio Negro began its journey home. For the crew, this was both a physical strain and a brilliant navigational achievement. Since the sinking took place in tropical waters, the rescued crew only had light clothing on and froze terribly on the journey home. They made do with replacement clothing made of woolen blankets and canvas for the guards and sent the others into the boiler rooms. In 1914 the Rio Negro was only intended for tropical service, so there was no map material for the northern regions around Iceland and Norway. Nevertheless, despite the winter storms and the detour via the ice regions, it reached Kiel on December 6, 1914, unnoticed by the enemy. It was then brought to the North Sea via the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal and anchored on the jade. The secrecy about the sinking of the Karlsruhe and the return of the survivors was so complete that the Royal Navy searched for the German cruiser until April 1915.

On March 29, 1917, the steamer was put into service as Sperrbrecher 11 for the Imperial Navy and was designated as Sperrbrecher 1 from March 21, 1918 . On December 9, 1918, the Rio Negro was returned to Hamburg-Süd.

Post war fate

On March 29, 1919, the Rio Negro was delivered to Great Britain according to the surrender conditions, where the shipping company Orient Line took over the operation of the ship and later the Rio Pardo . In 1920 Ellerman Lines took over the management of both ships and used the Rio Negro as a refugee transporter, which brought Russian refugees from the Black Sea ports to the Mediterranean.
In January 1921 Ellerman bought the ship and used it as the City of Palermo in South Africa. The Rio Pardo was also purchased and used in the same service as the City of Alexandria .

In July 1933 the former Rio Negro was sold to Italy for demolition. The former Rio Pardo was also eliminated, so that from the series only the type ship Rio Grande remained in service, which had been sailing under the Brazilian flag since 1917. It was only scrapped as Duque de Caxias in 1963.

Fate of the sister ships
Surname Shipyard GRT Launch in service further fate
Rio Grande Tecklenborg building
no. 200 		4556 11/24/1904 02/23/1905 Confiscated by Brazil on June 1, 1917 in Belém (Pará) , employed as Benavente , sold to Lloyd Brasileiro in 1926 and renamed Duque de Caxias , demolished in 1963
Rio Pardo Tecklenborg building
no. 204 		4620 05/20/1905 08/25/1905 1914 to 1918 as Sperrbrecher 11 and then Sperrbrecher 4 with the Imperial Navy, delivered to Great Britain May 25, 1919, service like Rio Negro with Orient Line and Ellerman, renamed City of Alexandria , also used in South Africa, 1933 sold for demolition to Haulbowline scrapped at Cobh , 1936
Container ship Rio Negro

As of 2008, the shipping company will again have a Rio Negro with the Rio-class container ship built in South Korea .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Kludas: The History of German Passenger Shipping , Volume III, p. 45.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Kludas: The ships of Hamburg-Süd 1871-1951 , p. 80.
  3. ↑ Kludas: Hamburg-Süd , p. 34ff.
  4. ↑ Kludas: Passenger Shipping , Volume II, p. 142.
  5. ^ Herbert: Kriegsfahrten German merchant ships , p. 18.
  6. ↑ Herbert, p. 19.
  7. ↑ Herbert, p. 19.
  8. ^ Jochen Brennecke: Black ships, wide seas - The mysterious journeys of German blockade breakers. 4th edition, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1975, ISBN 3-453-00103-6 , p. 36.

literature

Web links