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Veteran Survey Boat Gets New Home in Egypt
01 Feb 2005
An Egyptian multi-millionaire has paid 136,200 for the German survey ship veteran Wittesand , built more than half a century ago as a dredger supply boat on the Weser.
Detlef Wenz of the Survey Department of the Bremerhaven Waterways and Shipping Office (WSA) told MJ the 54-year-old vessel was sold through the Federal Disposal Sales and Marketing Agency VEBEG to Samih Sawiris. He is President of Orascom Telecom Holding and runs the El Gouna resort hotel complex on the Red Sea near the Port of Hurghada, in which the owner is involved and where reports said the boat would now work.
Wittesand , now renamed Wellesand , is 43.7m long, 7.6m wide and draws 2.2m. She was overhauled and made seaworthy for her new owner at the MWB Shipyard in Bremerhaven before leaving for Egypt with a crew of WSA old-timers, among them the now-pensioned former engineer of the old Wittesand.
During the overhaul, a new 70kW Mercedes auxiliary engine was installed, along with a 2.5 ton capacity loading boom.
The 266grt boat was built in Wilhelmshaven in 1951 as Nickel to delivery coal to steam-driven river dredgers. She became Wittesand when she was converted for the WSA into a sounding and survey boat in 1974/75. Her superstructures and bridge were enlarged. A technology conversion took place in 1983 when the latest in sounding and survey equipment was installed and the boat took over the job of an older sounding vessel. At that time her crane was also removed and replaced by two modern davits for tenders.
Wenz said the Wellesand wasstill equipped with the MWM 440kW main engine and bow thruster installed in 1988 and now overhauled at MWB.
The main engine provided 10.1 knots and the thruster improved manoeuvrability, he told Maritime Journal .
by TOM TODD
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