Sierra Class (1912)
| Sierra Class (1912) | ||
|---|---|---|
 The former Sierra Nevada as a Brazilian Bagé |
||
| Launch : |
August 24, 1912 - December 5, 1912 |
|
| Commissioning: | December 1912 - February 24, 1913 |
|
| Builders: |
Bremer Vulkan , Vegesack, BauNr. 559/560 AG Vulcan Stettin , building no. 328/329 |
|
| Sister ships: |
Sierra Ventana , Sierra Salvada , Sierra Nevada , Sierra Cordoba |
|
| similar: |
Sierra Nevada (II) AG Vulcan Stettin, 1922, 8753 GRT |
|
| Passengers: | 115–119 I. Class 74 II. Class 1270 or 1200 tween deck |
|
| Crew: | 160 men | |
| Technical specifications | ||
| Measurement: | 8226-8262 GRT | |
| Load capacity: | 8300-8800 dwt | |
| Length over all: | 138.05-139.59 m | |
| Width: | 17.07 m | |
| Draft : | ? m | |
| Machinery: | 2 triple expansion steam engines | |
| Number of screws: | 2 | |
| Power: | 4300 or 4200 PSi | |
| Top speed: | 13 kn | |
| Whereabouts | ||
| 1912–1919: NDL 1936–1963: loss / demolition |
||
With the four new passenger and cargo steamers of the Sierra class , North German Lloyd tried to gain a higher share of the passenger traffic to South America from 1912 onwards. Unlike the previous steamers with passenger facilities, the new steamers had two cabin passenger classes (115-119 1st class, 74 2nd class) in addition to tween deck capacity for emigrants (1270 or 1200 seats).
Service at the NDL
Four steamers were ordered from AG Vulcan Stettin (construction no. 328/329) and Bremer Vulkan (construction no. 559/560).
Both shipyards delivered their first ship in 1912, the second newbuilding followed at the beginning of 1913. The four newbuildings were measured with 8226-8262 GRT and had a carrying capacity of 8300 tdw (Stettiner delivery) and 8800 tdw, were 138.05 m or 139.59 m long and 17.07 m wide. Driven by two triple expansion steam engines of 4300 and 4200 hp respectively, the ships ran 13 knots and required a crew of 160 men.
The four ships got under way in quick succession and sailed in conjunction with the sister ships from the Bremer Vulkan Gotha and Giessen (delivered 1907/1908, 8200 tdw, ~ 50 passengers 2nd class, previously ~ 20) and Coburg and Eisenach (delivered 1910, 8140 tdw, ~ 65 2nd passengers, previously ~ 40), the number of cabins was also considerably expanded in 1912. Of the first Brazil steamers operated by the NDL, only Crefeld and Aachen were in use in 1914 .
The only real passenger steamer that the NDL used on the Bremerhaven- Río de la Plata route was the Schleswig , which was used from 1902 to 1904 , but was used in the Mediterranean from 1904.
| Remaining in 1914 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Surname | Construction no. | Launch | delivery | Maiden voyage | 1914 |
| Sierra Nevada | 328 | 08/24/1912 | ... 12.1912 | 01/04/1913 | 09/10/1914 Pernambuco |
| Sierra Cordoba | 329 | 11/02/1912 | 02/08/1913 | 02/15/1913 | 08.1914 Buenos Aires |
| Sierra Ventana | 559 | 10/12/1912 | December 21, 1912 | January 18, 1913 | 26.08.1914 hospital ship |
| Sierra Salvada | 560 | December 05, 1912 | 02/24/1913 | 03/01/1913 | 08.1914 Rio de Janeiro |
War effort
Sierra Nevada and Sierra Salvada were launched in Brazil in 1914 and were confiscated by the Brazilian government in 1917. They got going as Bage and Avaré for Lloyd Brasileiro .
The Sierra Cordoba , located in Buenos Aires , was supplied with 1700 tons of coal, work clothes, shoes and supplies for the auxiliary cruiser Crown Prince Wilhelm . She met the auxiliary cruiser off the Brazilian coast in mid-October 1914, handed over her goods (on October 23, 700 tons of coal were reloaded at sea within a day) and took over its prisoners, who they brought to Montevideo at the end of November. After the Battle of the Falklands , she was sent from Montevideo on December 18 with 1,600 tons of coal, provisions and spare parts to support the cruiser SMS Dresden . She entered Strait of Magellan on December 24, 1914 and visited Punta Arenas . She was then controlled by the British armored cruiser HMS Kent . Since it was in neutral waters, he could not stop it and German pilots managed to hide it in an unmapped bay - like the Dresden one. However, the ships were now in different bays and it was only on January 19, 1915 that the two German ships that were last sighted in Punta Arenas were merged (the Dresden 37 days ago and the Sierra Cordoba 26 days ago). On February 13, both broke out of the Strait of Magellan into the Pacific and must have passed the British armored cruiser HMS Carnarvon very closely. They then tried to land steamers on the well-known steamboat routes off the Chilean coast, but could only find sailors. As the coal supplies dwindled, the Sierra Cordoba was released on March 3rd to Callao , Peru, where it took over 1200 tons of coal and then went back to sea. However, it did not reach Dresden , which was sunk by British forces on March 14 at Robinson Island . The Sierra Cordoba returned to Callao and was confiscated by the Peruvian government in 1917 and renamed Callao . She was chartered from the United States, entered service with the US Navy on April 26, 1919, and made two trips from New York and Norfolk to Saint-Nazaire and Brest between June 27 and September 3, 1919, to meet soldiers and nurses attributed to the United States. On September 20, 1919, she was decommissioned and taken over by the US Department of Shipping.
The only sister ship in Germany, the Sierra Ventana , was commissioned on August 26, 1914 as a hospital ship of the Imperial Navy and remained in service until November 1918.
The Versailles Treaty stipulated that most of the German merchant fleet went to the victorious powers as part of reparations . The Sierre Ventana was delivered to France on January 26, 1920.
Post-war missions
The Callao ex Sierra Cordoba , which was given to the USA in 1919 , was sold to the Dollar Line in 1922 , which it used as Ruth Alexander . The shipping company operated as American President Lines in 1938 . On December 31, 1941, she was sunk off Balikpapan by a Japanese air raid.
The Sierra Ventana , which was delivered to France on January 26, 1920 , was launched in 1921 as Alba for the Compagnie de Navigation Sud-Atlantique . In 1926 she was transferred to the Compagnie des Chargeurs Reunis as Amerique . In 1936 she was the first of the sister ships to be demolished.
The Brazilian Bage was chartered for the French government from 1918 to 1926, then again for Lloyd Brasileiro . On August 1, 1943, she was sunk northeast of Bahia by the German submarine U 185 .
Avaré , which is also in service in Brazil, capsized when undocking in the Hamburg Vulkan shipyard. 39 men were killed. The ship, which was lifted two months later, was laid up and, after being repaired and converted - now with two funnels - went into service in July 1924 as Peer Gynt for the shipping company Viktor Schuppe, Stettin, which she used on cruises for up to 284 passengers.
The Peer Gynt set sail from Stettin on August 15, 1924 for the first trip to Norway, which was followed by another on September 4. Then she was transferred to Hamburg, where a four-week Mediterranean voyage began on September 17th. In 1925 the ship was mainly used in the Mediterranean. In December 1926 she was sold to Italy and Neptunia renamed but came back in September 1927 as Oceana the HAPAG again under German flag.
The Oceana continued to be used in the Mediterranean and had (like the Lützow of Norddeutscher Lloyds already in the previous year) a Junkers F 13 float plane on board, with which the passengers could take sightseeing flights in the ports of call. In 1928, she carried out five trips to the Mediterranean Sea (some as far as the Black Sea), three trips to Norway and in August a 17-day trip to the Baltic Sea for HAPAG.
After that, from September 5th to 30th, an “Atlantic cruise” was offered from Hamburg via Southampton, Portugal, Madeira to Tenerife and back via North Africa, Spain and the Isle of Wight. The term "cruise" is said to have been used for the first time for this trip. Similar programs were offered in the following years. The HAPAG cruise ship carried out KdF trips for the German Labor Front from 1934 , to which the ship was also sold in 1938. She took part in the so-called 1. Madeira trip of the DAF, in which on March 15, 1935 from Hamburg the Sierra Cordoba (II), the Der Deutsche ex Sierra Morena , the Stuttgart and the St. Louis also took part. In addition to short trips to Norway and longer trips to the Atlantic, Mediterranean trips from Genoa were also offered from autumn 1935, where the Oceana was relocated in winter. From 1939 the navy houseboat in Gdynia , later Stettin , the Oceana was put into service by the British in Flensburg in 1945 . On October 13, 1945, she suffered near Helgoland in position 54 ° 0 ' N , 7 ° 52' O a mine hit in the domestic transport to Hamburg with German internees on board. It was brought in and repaired in Hamburg and was supposed to come back into service as Empire Tarne . In February 1946 it was given to the Soviet Union. There she was renamed Sibir and served as a depot ship on the Pacific coast, laid up in 1958 and broken up in 1963. The former Sierra Salvada was the sister ship with the longest service life.
Sierra Nevada (II) then Madrid (1922–1941)
The Sierra Nevada (II) was designated as construction no. 666 built at the Stettiner Vulcan for the South America service of the NDL. In contrast to the pre-war ships, it had two funnels, the rear one only being a dummy to make the ship appear longer. She was 8753 GRT tall, was 133.50 m long and 17.25 m wide. She reached a speed of 13.5 knots and could manage 112 1st class, 82 2nd class and 1115 III. Carrying class passengers.
It was launched on May 22, 1922 and on September 6, 1922, it began its maiden voyage from Bremen to New York (two trips). It wasn't until the end of 1922 that she went to South America for the first time. In July 1925 it was renamed Madrid and the passenger accommodation was rebuilt. The renaming was probably also because the NDL now had three new, significantly larger Sierra ships in service. In 1927 the Madrid carried out a Baltic Sea / Scandinavia cruise for the first time. Occasionally she was used as a cruise ship until 1932. In 1929 the Madrid was in a timetable with Weser (III) and Werra (II), 9450 BRT, built 1922/23, on the Bremen, Vigo, Lisbon, Madeira, Tenerife, (Bahia) line , Rio de Janeiro, Santos, (Sao Francisco do Sul), (Rio Grande do Sul), Montevideo to Buenos Aires. Sierra Córdoba (II), Sierra Morena and Sierra Ventana (II) of the new Sierra class also served the Bremen, Boulogne, Vigo, Lisbon, Madeira, Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Montevideo and Buenos Aires lines. In addition, the Gotha was used in passenger traffic to South America. In 1932 she was deployed on the reinforced ocean line to Cuba and Mexico with the ex-Schuldt ships Mercury and Rio Panuco and two new Sierra steamers.
In the course of the reorganization of German liner shipping in 1934, NDL and HAPAG had to give up their South America east coast voyage and give up ships. So the Madrid was sold on May 16, 1934 to the Hamburg-South American Steamship Company , but was still registered in Bremen. At the beginning of the war she was in Las Palmas . In 1940 she broke through the blockade to Saint-Nazaire . The second chimney was removed and from February 15, 1941 it served as a residential ship for submarine crews. On December 9th, she was sunk in a British air raid near Den Helder off the coast of North Holland . 12 people died.
literature
- Carl Herbert: War voyages of German merchant ships. Broschek & Co, Hamburg 1934.
- Arnold Kludas : The history of the German passenger shipping 1850 to 1990. Ernst Kabel Verlag, 1986.
- Arnold Kludas: The ships of the North German Lloyd 1857 to 1919. Koehler's publishing company, 1991, ISBN 3-7822-0524-3 .
- Arnold Kludas: The ships of the North German Lloyd 1920 to 1970. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, 1992, ISBN 3-7822-0534-0 .
- Maria Teresa Parker de Bassi: Cruiser Dresden: Odyssey of No Return. Koehler Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1993, ISBN 3-7822-0591-X .
- Christine Reinke-Kunze: History of the Reichspostdampfer. Connection between the continents 1886-1914. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, 1994, ISBN 3-7822-0618-5 (3782206185).
- Claus Rothe: German ocean passenger ships 1896 to 1918. Steiger Verlag, 1986, ISBN 3-921564-80-8 .
- Claus Rothe: German ocean passenger ships 1919 to 1985. Steiger Verlag, 1987, ISBN 3-921564-97-2 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ histarmar.com.ar Argentine site on the South America service of the NDL
- ↑ home-and-garden.webshots.com Dresden and Sierra Cordoba in the Bahia Christmas, Patagonia, date not applicable
- ↑ so Parker de Bassi , p 406, other authors running Sierra Cordoba Valparaiso on
- ↑ history.navy.mil pre-war image of the Sierra Ventana
- ↑ schiffe-maxim.de article on Sierra Ventana II ; The bottom picture shows the Sierra Ventana (I) as a hospital ship
- ↑ theshipslist.com History and Ship List of the Dollar Line
- ↑ theshipslist.com History and list of ships in the Sud-Atlantique
- ↑ theshipslist.com History and list of ships of the Chargeurs Reunis
- ↑ theshipslist.com History and ship list of Lloyd Brasileiro
- ↑ fof-ohlsdorf.de Newspaper article on the accident
- ↑ timetableimages.com timetableimages.com flyer for the 1925 or 1926 season (no longer in service)
- ↑ schiffe-maxim.de Photo of the Oceana
- ↑ Timetable illustration
- ↑ with picture of Madrid
