Reiherstieg is last from SSB for Hadag

That’s because SBB – the Spezial Schiffbau Oortkaten – has now closed down after becoming insolvent late in 2013. Reiherstieg was completed and delivered just before SSB, Hamburg’s smallest shipyard, paid off its 13-strong workforce.

There were reports receivers were still talking to interested parties but no firm word of a new owner for SSB as MJ went to press. Future boats in the changing Hadag fleet, which currently numbers 24, will most likely have to be built elsewhere.

SSB used to be the Heinrich-Grube Werft, founded in 1865. It went bankrupt in 2000. Hadag’s Type 2000 boats, known locally as ‘flat irons’ because of their shape, were first introduced in 1997 and thirteen of the fourteen built to date came from SSB or Heinrich-Grube Werft.

Drawing about 1.6m, the 27.2m long and 7.8m wide Reiherstieg carries 160 passengers on Hamburg rivers and waterways. Costing around €2 million she is driven by a six-cylinder, four stroke Volvo Penta D13 500 MH main engine developing 12 knots and described by its makers as “a very strong and smooth running engine with world-class performance, combined with low emissions and low fuel consumption”. The engine drives a conventional shaft and single propeller plant. Thirteen of the 14 Type 2000 ships have been fitted with Volvo Penta Diesels. Hadag Board Chairman Gabriele Mueller-Remer has said that was because of the good experience gained with these engines.

Also listed on board are a Hatz 4M41 air cooled four-cylinder 4-stroke Diesel and a Volvo Penta D7 auxiliary drive with a Schottel SP J57 RD pump jet billed as of 177 KW.

Gabriele Mueller-Remer drew attention at the boat’s launch to its safety features. Reiherstieg carries two Viking life rafts and a modern Elbe chart-oriented radar system comprising an MTH 7217R radar plant and Radarpilot 720 as well as AIS system Type VDL 6000 which can pinpoint the boats position to within a metre, she said.

The last Type 2000 to enter service was Hamburgensie in June last year. She was bigger than the latest boat at 29.97m and 8.14m wide and came just in time to cope with an increase in HADAG passenger totals to 8.5 million in 2013 from about 8 million in 2012. Mueller-Remer said volumes are still rising.

Reiherstieg is the second Type 2000 with a bulbous bow as standard. Hamburgensie was the first. All the predecessors were retro-fitted with the bows in a programme completed in 2012. Hadag said the conversions had “significantly lowered” fuel consumption.

By Tom Todd