The ship class , known as the Weserstein class , is a series of seven cargo ships belonging to the North German Lloyd (NDL). The new turbine ships followed up on the shipping company's East Asia service, which was operated before the Second World War, and were all converted into fast freighters with diesel engines in 1964 .
After the extensive loosening of the shipbuilding restrictions of the Potsdam Agreement , North German Lloyd rebuilt its cargo ship fleet from 1950. Starting with the Rheinstein class , the NDL fleet grew again continuously. About two years later, Norddeutsche Lloyd ordered seven larger and faster turbine ships for service to the Far East. The similarly designed but slightly different in size cargo ships were built in three shipyards. On March 31, 1953, the shipping company was able to take over the first ship, the Weserstein, from the shipyard. A good year later, on July 26, 1954, the series was complete.
Use at the NDL
On the right the Havelstein in the port of Antofagasta
As planned, the ship septet was used on the longest route of Lloyd, the East Asia service, while the sister ships of the Braunschweig class of HAPAG were also used in jointly operated service. Later, both shipping companies also used these ships regularly in the South America West Coast (SAWK) and North Pacific express freight service. At the beginning, the first four ships were registered with the Roland-Linie Schiffahrtsgesellschaft , the last three with the Orlanda Reederei , and in 1959 they were all incorporated directly into the NDL. Lloyd had revived the Roland-Linie and the Orlanda shipping company in order to avoid confiscation due to any old debts in the post-war years. Since increasing the speed on the long routes of the East Asian service was the only means of absorbing the long lay times of the ships in Asia, Lloyd followed this development and had the series converted to more powerful diesel engines in 1964. In 1970, when the NDL merged with HAPAG, the ships became the joint property of the new Hapag-Lloyd and were part of their service there until 1973.
Later career
In 1973/74, Hapag-Lloyd sold six of the ships to several shipping companies, of which the Ocean Tramping Company in Mogadishu alone took over four units. Only the Moselstein remained in service for the company until 1977 after it was sold to Hapag Lloyd International , Panama. From then on, none of the ships were resold, remained in service for a number of years and were then abandoned between 1982 and 1985.
