Thalia (ship, 1909)
 The Thalia in front of the Snake Island in the Wörthersee
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
.svg){kind=small}
The Thalia is one of the last real steamships in Austria and at the same time the only screw steamer in the country. She is the flagship of the Wörthersee shipping and, along with the similarly sized motor ships Kärnten (1974) and Klagenfurt (1971), is one of the three largest ships that sail on the Wörthersee. The Thalia is operated by Wörthersee Schifffahrt.
The ship operating on the Wörthersee was built at the Dresden machine factory and shipyard Übigau with the production number 1036 in Saxony , delivered disassembled and completed in a shipyard near Pritschitz, part of Pörtschach in 1909. In 1974 it had to be taken out of service after a shaft break and was mothballed in the Klagenfurt shipyard.
In order to save the steamer from being scrapped, around one million euros was collected from private individuals and companies. The machine was overhauled in Lucerne, aluminum superstructures were delivered from a shipyard in Novi Sad. After completing extensive restoration work (December 1986 - June 1988), the Thalia has been in commercial operation again since July 2, 1988 and is primarily used for special trips. When it was sold to Wörthersee Schifffahrt in 2010, the buyer was required to operate and Stadtwerke Klagenfurt had the right to buy back the goods.
On the occasion of the 100th anniversary, a special postage stamp was issued in 2009.
The Thalia travel by commercial for shipping allocated on both sides at the bow painted vessel identification K-10,005th
Structure and rooms
In the front and rear third, the ship has two passenger decks one above the other. Only the lower ones are closed with walls and each side has a continuous row of 12 or 11 slightly raised windows. The floors of these salons reach below the waterline.
The front saloon rises to the bow with the ship's beltline by about 60 cm, tapers here with the hull and leaves a small, triangular piece of deck area free at the bow, where the anchor rests, which is supported by a rope and a rotating crane arm can be lifted overboard and into the water. The approximately 1 cm thick anchor chain runs through the anchor hawl , the opening on the starboard side (right) close to the vertical stem in the ship's hull. The Thalia has a heavier, second stick anchor lying on the deck as a reserve.
The wider “Casino Velden” salon at the rear has built-in tables and benches, and a bar at the rear with two roulette kettles in the corners, which can be seen through inclined mirrors above. A rearmost piece of a good semicircular deck area with rudder mechanics and double bollards for mooring is left out, but is built over.
The rear upper deck has a railing covered with tarpaulin and a tarpaulin roof on a tubular frame. Tables and chairs are complemented by a bar counter on the starboard side (left). The railing on the front upper deck is glazed and supplemented by an uncovered tubular frame at the top. A quarter of the length of the ship rises up a 10 m high wooden mast with flag lines spanning two thirds of the ship at the top and a top light, a green textile covered signal ball, the anchor ball, and a little above an all-round radar antenna.
The two decks in the middle of the ship are each exactly one half-story higher. Stairs with a good 45 ° steepness create the connections - in the middle or in pairs on the side. At the highest is the upper middle deck, which is also covered on the roof and railing with blue tarpaulin. At the front here is the glazed wheelhouse, which on the one hand is still equipped with a classic wooden steering wheel and machine telegraph, and on the other hand with a modern screen for radar image and GPS navigation.
The area around the wheelhouse is generally cordoned off for passengers. Right on the sides of the ship are the two outside steering positions that offer a view of the mooring situation. Behind the wheelhouse, the furnace stack rises up to 9 m above the loading mark , next to it, less high, two air scoops above the roof for ventilation of the engine room.
On the lower deck in the middle of the ship, there is an entrance door on each side of the ship in the railing filled with grids and two double bollards each for mooring on both sides of the passenger bridge to be laid from the landing stage. Within a corridor on this deck there is a kitchen with a front delivery window, behind it two toilets and behind the chimney, surrounded by a parapet, the ceiling opening of the engine room.
This opening was originally completely free, but in the course of the renovation (1989) the rear half was covered with a wooden roof with hinged skylights. At that time, the window openings in the parapet, which were only provided with iron bars, were also provided with glass windows in wooden frames.
Two chains block the access from the left to the particularly steep stairs down to the chimney in the machine room, the permanent workplace of the machinist, who operates the machine using large hand levers and can be observed from above. This engine room has two small portholes on each side of the ship - in front of and behind, each a little above the loading mark.
Steam engine and operation
The steam boiler " Waagner-Biro Thermobloc", which was originally fired by hand - scooped coal, is now heated with a forced-air oil burner.
To the left of the chimney is the steam boiler, today with a thermostat-controlled fan burner for oil. Coal that burned on a grate used to have to be shoveled in. A clad insulated with copper sheet steam line leads via the top to the steam engine, the bit is located behind the half length of the ship, the wave with typical 150-160 min -1 running and via a coupling piece with radial insertion holes screw shaft drives. About 1 m behind the engine, this carries an axial slide bearing made of three massive, oiled steel disks, which support the compressive and tensile forces from the propeller on lamellae permanently installed in the ship.
The machinist stands to the right of the machine and turns to face it. His attention is focused on the pointer telegraph at head height on the right, which is remotely controlled by the captain from one of his three control stands and which rings briefly with each adjustment. The machinist first acknowledges the command (e.g. “half power ahead”) by adjusting his telegraph lever accordingly and immediately changes the steam supply in order to achieve a suitable speed, which he can read on a pointer instrument.
The main steam valve is on top of the approximately 2.5 m high two-cylinder steam engine. A crank lever about 50 cm long allows adjustment by about 60 ° between “A” and “Z” and. If the high-pressure cylinder stopped at a dead center, steam must, as an exception, be dosed directly to the downstream (low-pressure) cylinder in order to start the rotation. In order to have the machine turn back for braking or a docking maneuver, it must first be stopped by closing the steam supply and then reversed. To do this, the lever protruding about 1 m between the connecting rods is unlocked, tilted and re-engaged.
The overhead cylinder block is only firmly connected to the crank bearing with four tie rods about 5 cm in diameter; two connecting rods and the control rods move up and down between the rods . Round, red-painted cover plates make the different cylinder diameters visible at the top: the high-pressure cylinder with a diameter of around 20 cm at the front, the low-pressure cylinder with a diameter of around 40 cm at the rear.
Behind him, the machinist has a drawer for tools and spare parts with a work surface. The cylinder head extends to the level of the floor of the entrance deck. Only the deck opening makes the top accessible for service.
Life-saving appliances
14 classic lifebuoys hang on the outside of the railing .
literature
- Hansgeorg Prix: Shipping on the Wörthersee Heyn (1988), ISBN 3-85366-561-6 .
Web links
- DS Thalia - woertherseeschifffahrt.at
- Entry on Thalia (Schiff, 1909) in the Austria Forum (in the Heimatlexikon)
- Rene Halper: The engine room of the steamship Thalia am Wörthersee youtube.com, video (2:09), upload November 4, 2013.
- Jonny Carinthia - JoFi Funmovie: Ships on Lake Wörthersee 1.wmv youtube.com, Video (2:23), Upload May 16, 2012.
Footnotes
- ^ DS Thalia. wörtherseeschifffahrt.at, accessed on July 24, 2017 .
- ↑ New captain for the shipping fleet: Contract for sale ... ( Memento from September 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) kleinezeitung.at, September 27, 2010.
- ^ "Keep the 'Thalia'" ( Memento from February 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) kleinezeitung.at, September 18, 2010.
- ↑ Entry on Thalia (Schiff, 1909) in the Austria Forum (as a stamp illustration), accessed on August 11, 2012