Schipka (ship, 1938)

Chipka

Ship data flag  Bulgaria Ship type Cargo ship Callsign LZDH home port Varna , Bulgaria Shipping company Societé Commerciale Bulgare de Navigation à Vapeur (1938–1941) Navigation Maritime Bulgare (1952–1978) Shipyard Neptun shipyard , Hamburg and Rostock Build number 779 (Hamburg), 475 (Rostock) Launch May 28, 1938 Commissioning December 7, 1938 Whereabouts September 15, 1941 sunk, lifted in 1952 a. reactivated, scrapped in 1978

Ship dimensions and crew length 92.41 m ( Lüa ) width 13.27 m Draft Max. 4.98 m measurement 2304 BRT , 1244 NRT

Machine system machine Double compound machine with exhaust turbine Machine performance 1,600 hp (1,177 kW) Top speed 12.0 kn (22 km / h) propeller 1

Transport capacities Load capacity 3200 tdw tdw

Others Registration numbers IMO number 5070517

The Chipka (bulg. Шипка ) was a cargo ship built in 1938 for the Bulgarian shipping company Societé Commerciale Bulgare de Navigation à Vapeur . During the Second World War she sailed in a German charter and was sunk in September 1941. Lifted in 1952, it served with the successor shipping company Navbul until it was demolished in 1978.

Construction and technical data

The ship was a cargo ship to order the shipping company at the Neptun shipyard in Hamburg under the hull number 779 laid on keel and expired on 28 May 1938 from the stack . The ship was brought to Rostock for further construction , which it reached June 15, 1938. The completion took place there under the construction number 475. Shortly before the work was completed, the ship caught fire on August 22nd, which meant that Chipka was only able to carry out the test and acceptance run on December 9th. The new building was the shipping company's first ship to bear the name of the city of the same name, Shipka in southern Bulgaria.

Her dimensions differed slightly from the sister ship Varna : It was 92.41 meters long, 13.27 meters wide and had a draft of 4.98 meters. It was measured with 2304 GRT or 1244 NRT and had a load capacity of 3200 tdw . A double compound machine with exhaust steam turbine and two-cylinder single-end boiler generated 1600 indexed horsepower and enabled a speed of 12.0 knots via one screw .

history

Use in the Bulgarian shipping

Immediately after completion, the ship was handed over to the Societé Commerciale Bulgare de Navigation à Vapeur on December 15, 1938 and reached the new home port of Varna with the first cargo from Western Europe on January 7, 1939. After the Varna, the Chipka was the second equipped with cooling systems Ship in the Black Sea and should be used on the connection to Alexandria . Little is known about their journeys during the brief period of peace, but a journey from Burgas with a load of 100 tractors and other agricultural machines to Balchik on September 29, 1940 is mentioned.

Wartime

After the start of the German attack on the Soviet Union ( Operation Barbarossa ), the Bulgarian government leased the Chipka to the Navy , which used the ship for military supplies. The Chipka ran on September 15, 1941 off Varna on a mine laid by the Soviet submarine L-4 and sank. The older literature sometimes speaks of the outdated indication of a torpedo hit.

Recovery and use at Navbul

After the war, Bulgarian salvage forces lifted the Chipka after three years of preparation on July 11, 1952. The ship was first cleaned in Varna and the hull was repaired. The further work took place in Genoa . There the ship was put back into service on September 28, 1954. The successor shipping company Navbul ( Navigation Maritime Bulgare ) initially used the freighter on the fixed lines from Bulgaria to Odessa , to Constanța and to ports in the Middle East . She later expanded the routes to Western Europe. After another almost 25 years of service, the Chipka reached Sveti Kajo near Split on December 23, 1978 for demolition.

literature

• Roger Jordan: The World's Merchant Fleets 1939. The Particulars and Wartime Fates of 6,000 Ships , Naval Institute Press, Annapolis / Maryland 1999, ISBN 1-55750-959-X .
• Reinhart Schmelzkopf: Foreign ships in German hands 1939–1945. Strandgut-Verlag, Cuxhaven 2004, DNB 972151001 .
• John D. Harbron: Communist Ships and Shipping , Adlard Coles, London 1962.
• Volker Schmidt: Back to our roots Part IX: The fire disaster in the Neptun shipyard in 1938 , In: BG Neptun Report 01/2013, p. 14 ( online version as PDF )
• Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronik des Seekrieges 1939–1945 , edited by the working group for military research and by the library for contemporary history , Manfred Pawlak Verlagsgesellschaft, Herrsching o. J. [1968], ISBN 3-88199-0097 , ( extended online version ).

Web links

• Chipka - IMO 5070517 at shipspotting.com (with photo), accessed February 12, 2020
• Navibulgar news December 2012 - January 2013 (History of the shipping company) (Bulgarian), accessed February 12, 2020

Footnotes

1. ^ Schmidt, p. 14
2. ↑ ^{a b} melt head, p. 53
3. ↑ Jordan, p. 8
4. ↑ ^{a b} Navibulgar news December 2012 - January 2013 (history of the shipping company) at navbul.com
5. ↑ Chronicle of the Naval War: September 15–29, 1941 Black Sea
6. ↑ Harbron, p. 240
7. ↑ Chipka - IMO 5070517 at shipspotting.com