New German workboat garners praise

The 36.52m loa, 6.69m wide Hilter only entered service earlier this year out of Meppen on the 270 kms Dortmund-Ems Canal. The canal links North Sea shipping and the seaport of Emden with the important inland industrial Rhine-Ruhr region and the port city of Dortmund. The newbuild is working the stretch between Geesen and the small town of Papenburg – best known as the home of frontrunning German shipbuilder Meyer Werft.

But depite the short service to date, Hilter has already come in for praise from operators and crews working for the WSA Ems-Nordsee – the responsible regional office of the nationwide German Waterways and Shipping Administration WSV.

Maritime Journal was told they were all very satisfied with the new workboat and its features. The newbuild had particularly impressed with its manoeuvrability and capacity potential as well as its on-board nautical equipment, MJ was told.

Hilter is one of only a handful of similar workboats in the WSV specialised fleet. It is designed to transport dredged and other materials and has a special folding bottom which can be opened to allow waterbed offload. It has joined the 27.02m floating suction dredger Emsland , in service since 2006, and the 31.5m Hüntel, operating since 1972. The boat which Hilter is now replacing, the Herbrun, served between 1971 and 2016.

Hilter itself was built at the Hermann Barthel Shipyard on the Elbe which worked closely with the WSV’s Mechanical Engineering Department in Coblenz. The yard is much in demand for its specialised small ships and boats – among them punchy sea rescue and police patrol boats.

Drawing max. 1.8m, Hilter has a 70 m3 capacity hold and can carry 220 tons. IVECO supplied much of the engine room equipment, including its IVECO Diesel engine.

A Schottel SRP 139 FP unit developing 220kW and providing15 kms/hour is also on board.

Other suppliers involved in the construction and outfitting of the workboat included Hydraulik Ingenieurbüro Kühn in Wusterwitz which was responsible for Hilter’s folding bottom hydraulics, IEA Industrieelektronik- und automation in Rossdorf, Alphatron Marine and corrosion protection experts Toepsch in Burg.