Hitzler completes first of three river icebreakers
'Kietz' is first of three from Hitzler
Germany’s small Hitzler Schiffswerft has completed 'Kietz', the first of three special inland icebreakers worth a total of €15.3 million for service with local waterways authorities in east and west Germany, writes Tom Todd.
The first two icebreakers are for the waterways and shipping authority (WSA) in Eberswalde north of Berlin where spokesman Ingo Triebler told The Motorship the first 34m long, 8.6m wide ice-breaker was likely to enter service in July and the second in November.
Costing €10.2 million, they are for service on the nearby Oder River between east Germany and Poland. They were ordered in May last year. Each displaces 245,500 m3 and is 34m long and 8.6m wide with a draught of 1.6 m. As well as their icebreaking duties, they can also be deployed as tugs.
The order for the third vessel, costing a further €5.1 million, was added last September by the WSA in Lauenburg on the River Elbe east of Hamburg, where the Hitzler Shipyard is located.
Lauenburg WSA spokesman Dirk Jankowski told The Motorship the third ship would be technically identical to the others. It will be used for similar local ice-breaking and tug duty on the Elbe and will, he added, replace one of ten icebreakers currently in service.
Eberswalde deploys eight icebreakers and the sizes of the fleets point up the importance of inland ice-breaking on major river arteries to and from Berlin and Hamburg which are regularly affected by ice.
The new vessels replace older tonnage although the Eberswalde ones will work alongside an earlier icebreaker, the 33.25m long Frankfurt, built by Hitzler in 2002. The design of the new vessels is based on that of the Frankfurt, officials said.
Propulsion is diesel-electric and the icebreakers boast two MAN D 2842 LE 301 main diesels, each of 532 kW at 1500 rev/min, two GC 45.24-M electric drive motors of 700 kW at 400-450 rev/min and two 4-blade, stainless steel fixed propellers of 1500 mm diameter.
Built to and under the supervision of GL, the newbuilds are classed +100 A5 1 E Ice-Breaker + MCI E.
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