The Steamboating Forum

Hi everyone,

On my trip to a museum ship from the GDR, I discovered some gems besides the freighter. Next to the "Langer Heinrich" swim crane, which was used fitting out at least one world famous german ship, and the "Capella" concrete freighter, I found a rotten, yet still afloat chain bucket excavator from 1895. I was so amazed, that I litterally needed to jump over the closed-off gangway and step on it. This thing was built when pre-dreadnoughts were the newest naval craze and the ships of the german High Seas Fleet, which took part in the battle of Jütland/Skagerrakschlacht, were as futuristic as a successor of the space shuttle. It gave me shivers to board it.

I have to stop myself here and get to the point - The excavator had been built in Lübeck at the Baltic Sea in 1895, possesses a riveted hull and a 2-flue fire tube boiler, meaning a Scotch boiler of course. That thing was only still afloat because it had been modified into a salvage barge during the days of the GDR. As you will see qhen I load up the photos, it has half a dozen steam engines on deck for all the steam winches. I will upload the eye candy in a couple of hours.

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On the right, you can see the "long Henry";), the "Langer Heinrich" as you can see, is quite a weathered sight. There had been a labor program for people bein unemployed, because all the shops and firms collapsed after the assimilation of the GDR. But those people were all untrained and unorganized. So, it effectively means they just scratched off most of the rust and painted it.

I like to see these old kind of black smokestacks with the red color band around and the initial of the ship builder or owner. Actually this color scheme was VERY, very dominant at least in the German Empire, but I think also beyond the realm.

This is a closer look of the riveted hull (the semi-spherical ends lie inside) and one of the steam winches sprean all over the deck's free space.

This is the on-deck boiler. As the ship hadn't been originally fitted out with any on-deck steam consumers, a separate vertical fire tube boiler was riveted onto the deck. Actually a winch directly astern is sitting on the same suspenders as the boiler, meaning the excavator had been outfitted with that as a whole unit.

I find some more photos of the steam engines on-deck. It is remarkable as steam donkeys weren't such a big thing here as far as I know. More photos coming soon.

Is the boat a museum now?

Hi Rick,

yes it is. You can find it in the Schifffahrtsmuseum Rostock, the open air exhibitions you will find here.

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Dietrich