City of Lucerne (ship, 1928)

City of Lucerne

Ship data flag  Switzerland Ship type Paddle steamer home port Lucerne Owner Shipping company Vierwaldstättersee Shipyard Sachsenberg brothers , Rosslau Launch 1928

Ship dimensions and crew length 63.5 m ( Lüa ) width 7.8 m above wheel arches: 15.2 m Draft Max. 1.6 m displacement 415  t   crew 9 (as of 1974), now 6 men

Machine system machine 3-cylinder steam engine Machine performance 1,600 hp (1,177 kW) Top speed 14 kn (26 km / h) propeller 2 side wheels

Transport capacities Permitted number of passengers 1,200

The city ​​of Lucerne is a paddle wheel steamer on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland . It is operated by the Lake Lucerne Shipping Company and is its flagship . She is the last steamship that was built for a Swiss lake.

history

The purchase of the ship was decided by the then "Steamship Company of the Vierwaldstättersee" (DGV) in 1926 in order to be able to dispense with the modernization of older ships, especially the city ​​of Lucerne from 1887. Although the DGV had their saloon paddle steamers built by Escher-Wyss or Sulzer up to this point in time , the decision was made to commission the Sachsenberg brothers in Roßlau on the Elbe , as the Swiss manufacturers offered significantly more expensive products and the construction of steamers planned to discontinue soon.

Paddle wheel

The city of Lucerne was with her delivery in 1928 with an inclined two-cylinder superheated steam compound engine equipped. However, just two days after its maiden voyage on June 23, 1928, the ship had to be shut down for more than a year due to an engine breakdown. It turned out that the machine did not meet the requirements and had to be replaced. An inclined triple direct current steam engine from Sulzer was chosen as a replacement , and has been in service since the second maiden voyage on July 5, 1929.

The city ​​of Lucerne stands out from the consistently older other steamers on the lakes of Switzerland with its design based on the ocean liners of the 1920s, including art deco- style salons . Bugzier is the Lucerne blue and white. She is the longest, widest and heaviest passenger ship on Lake Lucerne. With 1200 passengers it also has the largest capacity and with 1600 HP (throttled to 1300 HP during operation to protect it) the most powerful machine on the lake. In 1953/54 the boiler system was converted from coal to heavy oil firing . An extensive general overhaul was carried out in stages between 1985 and 1989 in winter, and another between 1997 and 2000.

Another revision is planned until 2021. After the steam boiler of the steam engine was renewed in the shipyard, the ditching took place on August 13, 2020. The renovation of the furniture and the kitchen will be carried out on the floating ship.

Like the other four active Lake Lucerne steamers Uri , Unterwalden , Schiller and Gallia , the city ​​of Lucerne has been classified as a cultural asset of national importance (category A).

commitment

The city ​​of Lucerne is used for both scheduled and charter trips. As of the end of the 2012 season, she had covered 981,965 km. It is also occasionally used on state visits; so Eva Perón and Queen Elizabeth II drove with her. General Henri Guisan used the ship in 1940 for a voyage with senior officers of the Swiss Army to the Rütli report .

literature

• Erich Liechti et al .: Shipping on Lake Lucerne. History and register of ships. Verlag Eisenbahn, Villigen 1974, ISBN 3-85649-021-3 .
• Josef Gwerder: Steamship City of Lucerne. Log book , Multicolor, Baar 2008, ISBN 3-85766-030-9 .

Web links

Commons : City of Lucerne  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Schifffahrtsgesellschaft des Vierwaldstättersee: City of Lucerne ( Memento of the original from October 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 246 kB), accessed on April 21, 2009. 
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Dampferfreunde Vierwaldstättersee: City of Lucerne ( Memento of the original from December 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed May 2, 2009. 
3. ↑ ^{a b} Erich Liechti et al .: Shipping on Lake Lucerne. History and register of ships. Verlag Eisenbahn, Villigen 1974, ISBN 3-85649-021-3 , pp. 66-67.
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Dampferfreunde Vierwaldstättersee: Technical data of the “City of Lucerne” ( memento of the original from June 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed May 3, 2013. 
5. ^ Steamship City of Lucerne
6. ↑ A – Objects LU 2018 . Swiss inventory of cultural assets of national importance. In: babs.admin.ch / kulturgueterschutz.ch. Federal Office for Civil Protection FOCP - Department of Cultural Property Protection, January 1, 2018, accessed on December 26, 2017 (PDF; 88 kB, 14 pages, updated annually, no changes for 2018).