Paddle Steamer Resources by
Tramscape
German
North Sea Coast and
Islands
Norddeutsche
Lloyd (NDL)
Established in 1857
throught the merger of four local shipping companies.
Services on the lower Weser river were provided by the steamers
Hanseat, Oldenburg and Paul Friedrich August. They were soon joined
by the Roland which undertook sailings to Norderney and Helogland for
NDL until 1884 and remained on Weser river services under new
ownership until 1897.
The paddler Forelle was launched in 1881 for service on the Weser and
extended to the seaside resorts, and she was joined by the vessels
Hecht, Lachs and Delphin, which became known as the
"Fischgeschwaders" (ie Fish Fleet). Forelle was sold in 1915 as NDL
withdrew from Weser services and concentrated on the longer sea
routes to the seaside resorts and Helgoland. These services were in
the hands of the larger paddlers Nixe of 1899 and the Najade of 1894.
Najade had triple expansion engines, a length of just over 71 metres
and was registered as 724 gross tonnes. She remained on the station
until 1927. Nixe, marginally larger than Najade, sailed in the Baltic
Sea after World War II and was sold in 1925 and broken up in
1930.
In 1905, the screw steamer Vorwarts joined the fleet, remaining until
sold in 1938 (The vessel was eventually in the HAPAG fleet, becoming
their last ship in the coastal trade until withdrawn after the 1952
season).
After World War I, NDL added the screw steamer Gruesgott to its fleet
of Najade, Nixe, Lachs and Delphin.
A major improvement on the Helgoland route was introduced in 1927
with the new Roland, a turbine steamer with a gross registered
tonnage of 2436 and a passenger capacity of 2400. Roland became a
minelayer during World War II and was sunk off Narva, near Leningrad
(USSR) on April 21st, 1944 with considerable loss of life.
In 1930 NDL purchased the 981 gross tonne Gluckauf, which had earlier
been HAPAG's Bubendey, built in 1913, and she was mainly used as a
tender to ocean liners, including at Southampton, England. After
World War II she was used by the HAPAG company on charter for
services to the sea resorts, until she was laid up in 1950. She
returned to service in 1954 substantially altered, registered as 1171
gross tonnes and converted to motor power. She sailed for a Lloyd
subsidiary until 1960, eventually passed to Italian owners in 1963
and was not broken up until 1986.
NDL opeated various other steamers such as Move which made the
company's first call at Helgoland in 1857 en route to England, and
the Nordsee, the first iron screw steamer sailing from the Weser to
Helgoland from 1865.
However, it was as an operator of ocean liners that NDL was most
famous. Their vessel Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse (launched in 1897) was
the largest liner in the world and soon took the coveted Blue Riband
as the fastest vessel on the crossing from Europe to North America.
In this trade NDL was engaged in competition with some of the
greatest names in shipping - local rivals HAPAG from Hamburg and
British rivals, Cunard and White Star - and was one of the largest
shipping companies in the world.
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German North Sea Coast and
Islands