Vorarlberg (ship)

Vorarlberg

Ship data flag  Austria Ship type Passenger ship home port Bregenz Owner since 2005: Vorarlberg Lines-Bodenseeschifffahrt until 2005: Austrian Federal Railways Shipyard Korneuburg shipyard Order 1962 baptism November 21, 1964 and July 30, 1965 Commissioning August 12, 1965 Whereabouts in motion

Ship dimensions and crew length 61.95 m ( Lüa ) width 12.05 m Side height 3.1 m Draft Max. 1.88 m displacement 514  t

Machine system machine 2 × MTU 12-cylinder 4-stroke diesel engines Machine performance 2 × 550 kW Top speed 17 kn (31 km / h) Energy supply 2 × MTU 8-cylinder, 4-stroke diesel engines Machine performance 2 × 150 kVA propeller 2 × Voith Schneider drives

Transport capacities Permitted number of passengers 1,000

The motor ship Vorarlberg is a passenger ship on Lake Constance with the home port of Bregenz . It was put into service on August 12, 1965 and has since been used in scheduled shipping and for special trips and excursions. Vorarlberg Lines-Bodenseeschifffahrt (VLB) in Bregenz has been the owner since 2005 . The name of the ship was the trigger for the Fußach affair .

history

The first plans for a new motor ship for Lake Constance were made in 1955, but for various reasons they came to a standstill for five years. Not until 1960, triggered u. a. Due to the repeated failure of the old motor ship Austria , shipbuilding became topical again.

In autumn 1963, the Austrian Federal Railways finally ordered a motor ship for regular and excursion traffic from Schiffswerften AG in Korneuburg , which should be roughly the size of Austria . The ship was built in Korneuburg and transported disassembled to Fußach on Lake Constance, where the final assembly of the ship parts took place from July 1964.

Ship christening

→ Main article : Fußach affair

A month-long and fierce dispute arose over the name of the ship between the Austrian federal government (which had provided the name Karl Renner ) and the state of Vorarlberg and its population (which insisted on the name Vorarlberg , which was suggested from the beginning ). The dispute culminated in a scandal on November 21, 1964: Thousands of demonstrators prevented the official christening of the ship and named the ship Vorarlberg with a bottle of Lake Constance water . The incident caused a lot of political waves and the dispute over the name was not settled until July 1965. On July 30, 1965, the Vorarlberg was "remote baptized" from Korneuburg.

use

The Vorarlberg left for the first official voyage on August 12, 1965 and was the flagship of the Austrian Lake Constance fleet until the Austria's general overhaul in winter 1992/93. In addition to regular trips, she was and is still primarily used as a special ship for excursions. Are known u. a. the Sunday trips to the island of Mainau . Especially in its first years of operation, the Vorarlberg also came to quite unusual missions, for example for filming (ORF entertainment show, 1967), as a butter ship (duty-free sale of alcohol, tobacco, cheese and butter, 1974) or as a floating ballroom (Faschingsgilde Rorschach, 1975 ).

The Vorarlberg was subjected to a general renovation in two construction stages. It began in December 1996 and ended in June 2000. On July 1, 2000, the ship was put back into service with a special TV trip. In a new edition of the traditional races for the “Blue Ribbon of Lake Constance” on April 12, 2003, Vorarlberg won “ex aequo” with Austria .

In 2005 the Austrian Federal Railways sold their shipping operations to Vorarlberg Lines-Bodenseeschifffahrt. The sale comprised the entire Lake Constance fleet, the port area with around 71,000 square meters and all port buildings.

literature

• Arnulf Dieth: The Austrian shipping on Lake Constance , Hecht, Hard 1984, page 155f.
• Arnulf Dieth: Red - White - Red on Lake Constance: Austrian shipping through the ages , Hecht, Hard 1995, ISBN 3-85298-013-5 .
• Christian Dickinger : The scandals of the republic. Haider , Proksch and Co. Ueberreuter, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-8000-3820-X .
• Harald Dunajtschik: popular uprising because of ship baptism . The Fußach Affair in 1964 . In: Michael Gehler; Hubert Sickinger (Ed.): Political affairs and scandals in Austria. From Mayerling to Waldheim . Kulturverlag, Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-85400-005-7 ; Studienverlag, Innsbruck 2007, ISBN 978-3-7065-4331-6 .
• Gerhard Wanner: Ship christening Fußach 1964 , Russ, Bregenz 1980 DNB 860178862 .

See also

• List of passenger ships on Lake Constance
• White Fleet (Lake Constance)

Web links

Commons : Vorarlberg  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• The Vorarlberg on bodenseeschifffahrt.de
• The The Vorarlberg on the side of the Vorarlberg Lines-Bodenseeschifffahrt

Footnotes

1. ↑ Vorarlberg site of the Vorarlberg Lines ( Memento from July 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Give your event a dream ship atmosphere ( Memento from July 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive )