Post by ferryrider42 on Nov 4, 2007 12:43:29 GMT -8
New B.C. ferry baptised in world's busiest canal
Dave Obee, Times Colonist staff
Published: Thursday, October 25, 2007
RENDSBURG, Germany - On Saturday, the Coastal Renaissance will set sail from the German shipyard where it was built, heading to its new home in British Columbia.
The newest vessel in the B.C. Ferries fleet will go along Europe's Atlantic coast to Gibraltar, cross to the Canary Islands, then carry on to the Caribbean Sea. It will go through the Panama Canal and up the Pacific Coast. The entire trip is expected to take about 45 days.
On the first day of its voyage, the Coastal Renaissance will need to get from one side of the Jutland Peninsula -- what most of us think of as Denmark and the northern tip of Germany -- to the other.
To do that, it will go south from the shipyard in Flensburg to the city of Kiel, where it will enter the Nord-Ostsee Kanal, known in English as the North-Baltic Sea Canal and commonly referred to as the Kiel Canal. Going across the peninsula rather than around it cuts the distance of the route by a couple of hundred nautical miles, and allows vessels to avoid some storm-prone waters.
That is why this canal, 100 kilometres long and 16 km across, is the busiest artificial waterway in the world, with 119 ships passing through, on average, every day.
A couple of hours after the ferry enters the canal, it will round a corner on the east side of the small city of Rendsburg. The people on board will see a Canadian flag being raised, and will hear the Canadian national anthem being played over loudspeakers at the water's edge. People on the shore will wave.
The Rendsburg greeting will probably thrill those on the Coastal Renaissance, just as it thrills the crew members and passengers on all of the other vessels that pass through. A big welcome isn't that unusual, after all; it's just the way they do things here.
Rendsburg was here for at least 700 years before the canal was opened in 1895, and most of the vessels using the waterway don't even stop here. Still, the canal has had a tremendous impact on this city of 29,000 people in Schleswig-Holstein, about an hour north of the airport at Hamburg. It is, after all, the most important route for trade to and from the Baltic Sea and the Scandinavian countries.
The canal was created by a workforce of 9,000 men. The project took eight years to complete. Originally called the Kaiser Wilhelm Kanal, after the man who approved it, the canal has been expanded several times so it could accommodate larger vessels.
Still, this canal cannot handle many of the ships that use the more famous canals, at Panama and Suez. As a result, the average amount of cargo transported per vessel through here is a fraction of what is found on the other canals -- roughly 20 per cent of the amount seen at Panama and just 10 per cent of the Suez average.
But size isn't everything. The Kiel Canal allows two-way traffic, while the Panama and Suez canals are limited to convoys going one way, then the other.
Beyond that, the cost of transit through the Kiel Canal is far lower. A vessel that would pay 3,000 euros -- about $4,500 -- here would need to pay $48,000 to get through Panama.
The canal's operating costs are heavily subsidized by the state and federal governments. Drivers and pedestrians who want to cross it get a bargain, as well. That is because Kaiser Wilhelm promised when the project was announced 120 years ago that nobody would have to pay to get from one side to the other.
As a result, the 14 ferries, 10 bridges and two tunnels are all free of charge.
Both tunnels are at Rendsburg. One is a four-lane vehicle tunnel built between 1957 and 1961 to replace a swing bridge.
The other is one for the record books. It is a pedestrian-only tunnel, built between 1962 and 1965, that is about 20 metres below the surface. The tunnel has two 55-metre escalators at either end that are said to be the longest in western Europe. Riding one of the escalators takes three minutes.
There is one other way to cross the canal at Rendsburg -- one so unusual it was featured on a German postage stamp in 2001.
It is a suspension ferry, sometimes referred to as a transporter bridge. It is a platform that is suspended, like a gondola, by cables from the railway bridge. Every 15 minutes, the little ferry completes a round trip from one side to the other, cruising along a couple of metres above the water's surface while trains run high above it.
Only about 20 suspension ferries have been built around the world, and only about a half-dozen are still in operation. The one in Rendsburg is said to be the only one that is part of a regular bridge.
It takes about a minute to make the crossing from one side to the other, and while waiting, passengers can watch ships go past a few metres away, or go to the adjacent restaurant that also serves as the official greeting point. In a small glass booth next to the water, an announcer queues up the anthems, then runs out to change the flags as needed.
Vancouver Island residents familiar with the rush to and from a ferry would be green with envy over the time it takes the folks in Rendsburg to load or unload one of these ferries. It's about 15 seconds either way.
But then, the Rendsburg ferry can take a grand total of four cars at a time, or one transport truck. Compare that to the 370-vehicle capacity of the Coastal Renaissance.
Odds are, when the newest B.C. Ferries vessel goes past here, Rendsburg ferry regulars will be green with envy, too.
www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=184903e8-40cd-4b31-affa-9d42197fae7e&k=52147&p=1
Dave Obee, Times Colonist staff
Published: Thursday, October 25, 2007
RENDSBURG, Germany - On Saturday, the Coastal Renaissance will set sail from the German shipyard where it was built, heading to its new home in British Columbia.
The newest vessel in the B.C. Ferries fleet will go along Europe's Atlantic coast to Gibraltar, cross to the Canary Islands, then carry on to the Caribbean Sea. It will go through the Panama Canal and up the Pacific Coast. The entire trip is expected to take about 45 days.
On the first day of its voyage, the Coastal Renaissance will need to get from one side of the Jutland Peninsula -- what most of us think of as Denmark and the northern tip of Germany -- to the other.
To do that, it will go south from the shipyard in Flensburg to the city of Kiel, where it will enter the Nord-Ostsee Kanal, known in English as the North-Baltic Sea Canal and commonly referred to as the Kiel Canal. Going across the peninsula rather than around it cuts the distance of the route by a couple of hundred nautical miles, and allows vessels to avoid some storm-prone waters.
That is why this canal, 100 kilometres long and 16 km across, is the busiest artificial waterway in the world, with 119 ships passing through, on average, every day.
A couple of hours after the ferry enters the canal, it will round a corner on the east side of the small city of Rendsburg. The people on board will see a Canadian flag being raised, and will hear the Canadian national anthem being played over loudspeakers at the water's edge. People on the shore will wave.
The Rendsburg greeting will probably thrill those on the Coastal Renaissance, just as it thrills the crew members and passengers on all of the other vessels that pass through. A big welcome isn't that unusual, after all; it's just the way they do things here.
Rendsburg was here for at least 700 years before the canal was opened in 1895, and most of the vessels using the waterway don't even stop here. Still, the canal has had a tremendous impact on this city of 29,000 people in Schleswig-Holstein, about an hour north of the airport at Hamburg. It is, after all, the most important route for trade to and from the Baltic Sea and the Scandinavian countries.
The canal was created by a workforce of 9,000 men. The project took eight years to complete. Originally called the Kaiser Wilhelm Kanal, after the man who approved it, the canal has been expanded several times so it could accommodate larger vessels.
Still, this canal cannot handle many of the ships that use the more famous canals, at Panama and Suez. As a result, the average amount of cargo transported per vessel through here is a fraction of what is found on the other canals -- roughly 20 per cent of the amount seen at Panama and just 10 per cent of the Suez average.
But size isn't everything. The Kiel Canal allows two-way traffic, while the Panama and Suez canals are limited to convoys going one way, then the other.
Beyond that, the cost of transit through the Kiel Canal is far lower. A vessel that would pay 3,000 euros -- about $4,500 -- here would need to pay $48,000 to get through Panama.
The canal's operating costs are heavily subsidized by the state and federal governments. Drivers and pedestrians who want to cross it get a bargain, as well. That is because Kaiser Wilhelm promised when the project was announced 120 years ago that nobody would have to pay to get from one side to the other.
As a result, the 14 ferries, 10 bridges and two tunnels are all free of charge.
Both tunnels are at Rendsburg. One is a four-lane vehicle tunnel built between 1957 and 1961 to replace a swing bridge.
The other is one for the record books. It is a pedestrian-only tunnel, built between 1962 and 1965, that is about 20 metres below the surface. The tunnel has two 55-metre escalators at either end that are said to be the longest in western Europe. Riding one of the escalators takes three minutes.
There is one other way to cross the canal at Rendsburg -- one so unusual it was featured on a German postage stamp in 2001.
It is a suspension ferry, sometimes referred to as a transporter bridge. It is a platform that is suspended, like a gondola, by cables from the railway bridge. Every 15 minutes, the little ferry completes a round trip from one side to the other, cruising along a couple of metres above the water's surface while trains run high above it.
Only about 20 suspension ferries have been built around the world, and only about a half-dozen are still in operation. The one in Rendsburg is said to be the only one that is part of a regular bridge.
It takes about a minute to make the crossing from one side to the other, and while waiting, passengers can watch ships go past a few metres away, or go to the adjacent restaurant that also serves as the official greeting point. In a small glass booth next to the water, an announcer queues up the anthems, then runs out to change the flags as needed.
Vancouver Island residents familiar with the rush to and from a ferry would be green with envy over the time it takes the folks in Rendsburg to load or unload one of these ferries. It's about 15 seconds either way.
But then, the Rendsburg ferry can take a grand total of four cars at a time, or one transport truck. Compare that to the 370-vehicle capacity of the Coastal Renaissance.
Odds are, when the newest B.C. Ferries vessel goes past here, Rendsburg ferry regulars will be green with envy, too.
www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=184903e8-40cd-4b31-affa-9d42197fae7e&k=52147&p=1