Museum ship gets €1 million revamp
One of Germany’s best-known veteran museum ships has undergone an extensive €1 million class renewal and overhaul in Bremerhaven and been given a clean new bill of health.
Built in 1961/62 and marking its 55th birthday on April 10th, the 9,998gt Cap Dan Diego is billed as the world’s largest museum cargo ship still on active service. It docked for nearly a month at leading repair and conversion shipyard German Dry Docks and was leaving the yard late March after completion of works covering 200 individual jobs and classification renewal by DNV GL.
The Berlin Government put up €400,000 of the cost of the yard visit and the rest of the money has come from donations raised by the Stiftung Hamburg Admiralität – the foundation which owns and looks after the veteran ship.
The work at GDD has included the replacement of steel plates and GDD told Maritime Journal that a 70 m2 area of tweendeck – two thirds of the total deck – was replaced. Another task was the cleaning, repair and conservation of tanks and bilges. GDD said tanks originally intended for vegetable oils were blasted and recoated for use as catering waste disposal tanks. Also overhauled and tested was still operational loading equipment, lifeboat davits and gangways while anchors and anchor chains were drawn and laid out for inspection.
The propeller was also drawn and inspected and the outer shaft Simplex sealing was exchanged. The entire hull underwent safety thickness measurement, position lights were renewed on the bridge wings and derricks and cranes were overhauled.
Cap San Diego is 159.40m long and 21.47m wide and propelled by a two-stroke 9-cylinder MAN K9Z 78/140 D diesel engine at 11,650 hp/8,569 kW which drives a single propeller providing a service speed of 19 knots. The ship also has four auxiliary KHD-engines (500 hp) with generators to supply electricity 440V/115AC. It was built for a crew of 50, now reduced to 40 volunteers – all retired seafarers.
Built by the Deutsche Werft in Hamburg, Cap San Diego is the last surviving ship in a highly-regarded series of six fast identical breakbulk cargo ships built for German shipowner Hamburg Süd. They sailed up to the end of 1981, mainly in South American trades and the other ships were Cap San Augustin, Cap San Marco, Cap San Nicolas, Cap San Antonio and Cap San Lorenzo. All had the same dimensions although tonnage varied slightly.
The Cap San Diego has been tied up in Hamburg since 1988 as a maritime monument and much-loved local museum ship. It also serves as a floating hotel and carries up to 500 passengers on regular trips to other German seaports as well as across the German Bight to Heligoland.
By Tom Todd
