The ship was built at the Kröger shipyard in Rendsburg under construction number 1082. It was launched on May 19, 1957 and on December 15, 1956, the ship was transferred to the shipping company "MS Transsylvania" in Bremen ( correspondent owner : Reederei Helmut Bastian , Bremen ) to hand over. In 1960, the German MacGregor took over the ship, which had the hatch system rebuilt. In May 1960 the shipping company Friedrich A. Detjen from Hamburg took over the management of the Transylvania . In 1968, the German steam shipping company "Hansa" in Bremen acquired the ship and renamed it Stahleck . On December 14, 1970, the Argonaut Shipping Corporation from New York acquired the freighter and renamed it Sylvian and transferred the management to the Oriental Navigation Company in Monrovia . In the following year, the company Katrien NV in Willemstad / Curaçao bought the ship and placed it under the management of the shipping company Bellis from Stockholm as Kathy . In 1972 the Sloman Line from Hamburg chartered the ship and operated it as Sloman Valencia until 1974 under the further management of the Bellis shipping company . After the end of the charter in March 1974, the ship was given the name Kathy back and the management was transferred to the Trannserz shipping office in Hamburg. In 1976 the Gulf Caribbean Navigation Company from Georgetown / Cayman Islands took over the ship and named it Katya M. and a year later the Naviera Central from Maracaibo bought the ship and shortened the name to Katya . The last owner from 1979 was the Navigaceon Capriles (NACAPSA) from Maracaibo. On April 5, 1979, the ship sank about 80 nautical miles off Aruba on a voyage from Venezuela to Kingston / Jamaica . In bad weather, the paper deck cargo had sucked full of water and the ship only strong list received and then suffered flooding.
technical description
The Transsylvania was a conventional medium-sized multipurpose dry cargo ship with a deckhouse arranged aft and a deadweight of around 2200 tons. It had a continuous cargo space with an intermediate deck and a grain space of 3314 m³, which could be operated via a smaller front and a larger rear hatch. For the forward cargo hold, the ship had a pair of smooth-deck folding hatch covers that were inserted directly into the weather deck above the forward cargo hold without the usual hatch coaming , which were hydraulically operated. Due to a lack of experience, the front hatch initially only received temporary approval from the Germanischer Lloyd classification society . A further hatch could only be applied for after a year of trouble-free operation, and permanent approval was only granted after ten years. The rear cargo area was associated with a conventional single-McGregor pull ukenabdeckung with coaming and losnehmbarem Herft equipped. In the intermediate deck, hydraulically operated smooth deck folding hatch covers were also used at the front and rear, and five conventional covers were also used for insertion in the middle section of the rear intermediate deck hatch. The cargo gear of the Transsylvania consisted of a twin cargo post on the front edge of the deck structure and a centrally mounted cargo post between hatch 1 and hatch 2. A total of one 15-ton cargo boom, two 5-ton cargo booms and four 3-ton cargo booms were available. After the Deutsche MacGregor took over the ship in 1960, various hatch systems were installed in the intermediate deck and the Transsylvania served as a floating study object.
The ship was powered by two MWM four-stroke diesel engines of the type TRH 348 AU with a total of 2200 hp at 375 revolutions per minute, which delivered their power to a propeller via a Lohmann & Stolterfoth reduction gear. The electrical supply was ensured by several auxiliary and emergency diesels.
