Why do some ships make it up/down the river

Hi River Cruisers- I'm on the AmaPrima 12/14, with family and friends and noticed a few posters say that some ships make it though without issue. Does it have something to do with the specific boat size, weight, etc.? Just curious. We did the Rhine last year on Viking without a blip on the trip. LOVED it.

Hi River Cruisers- I'm on the AmaPrima 12/14, with family and friends and noticed a few posters say that some ships make it though without issue. Does it have something to do with the specific boat size, weight, etc.? Just curious. We did the Rhine last year on Viking without a blip on the trip. LOVED it.

Has to do with the draft (how far down in the water the ship sits) of the ship. On our Vantage cruise, the lowest water spot was 6 feet deep. Our ship's draft was 5', so we managed to get through. Other ships have bigger drafts and couldn't make it through.

It´s all about the draft ;)! Some ships do draw more water than others. Like the Viking ships which have a draft of 1.9 m. Others have 1.6 m.

steamboats

So curious about what Viking could have been thinking when they built all the new Longships with the deepest drafts....the water depth issues are not new!

So curious about what Viking could have been thinking when they built all the new Longships with the deepest drafts....the water depth issues are not new!

Their concern seems to have been packing on as many paying bodies as possible.

Thanks everyone for the info. Something new to put in my crowded brain.

Their concern seems to have been packing on as many paying bodies as possible.

I wonder how much extra weight and draft is a result of these longships' "environmentally friendly hybrid" power plants.

Hello CPT Trips,

interesting thought about the Viking engines and their new technology. It is not often mentioned but Viking and the shipyard have proudly reported on this new environmentally friendly type of engine.

Something that needs mentioning: draft is something that can be altered of course. There is a basic draft to the ship, but 190 people and drinking water in the tanks do add to the weight a bit and increase the draft.

As someone reported in the Rhine - water levels ... thread their ship was almost scraping the ground with just 15 cm clearance (not a Viking ship). For the Viking ships with supposedly the deepest draft of the river cruise ships a crucial few centimetres clearance in the Middle Rhine valley that could determine whether they sail or not. Their policy as stated on their website is to ensure the passengers see all the ports and complete their journey. I.e. I read it as they are more willing to bus people rather than Viking cancelling the cruise entirely. I state this as a fact and am not judging here. As is happening right now on the Rhine Viking passengers are getting the "complete" cruise by being bussed a short distance and/or being on a charter boat (they are large, accommodating up to 400 passengers, but have no cabins) and switching to another boat on the other side of the bottleneck. Viking has the amount of boats and therefore the logistics to do that. It does not automatically mean they cannot sail the Rhine gorge at all. Other companies appear to have cancelled cruises and I recall reading about one ship swap other than Viking. Would be nice to hear more "on-river reports" from current cruisers.

As a side note: there are other companies like ARosa that have large ships, ARosa can take 200 passengers on most of their ships, I would need to look up the specifics for each individual ship.

I have not read about cruises being cancelled but the German companies do not seem to update websites in that manner. News reports have not reached my ear either. Seeing that I am looking into a short Christmas market cruise myself hopefully I can find something out.

notamermaid

The draft can be adjust somewhat by lessening weight but it not very significant. Our Avalon captain said that getting all pax off the ship made only ONE centimeter difference. Blowing water ballast helped a little more.

But Vikings ship construction is significantly different. They start out drafting about 18 inches more than, say, an Avalon ship. That's far too much to overcome by blowing ballast and getting the pax off the ship. Otherwise, that's exactly what they'd do. They would offload the people, blow the ballast, and sail on down river whereupon the people could reboard the same ship. Obviously, they are unable to do that so the ships are getting stuck all up and down the river while other cruise lines are getting through. And their cruises are turned into bus tours.

This wouldn't be so bad if the travelers were being informed ahead of time by Viking so that could make a go/no go decision before they left home. But there are too many reports that Viking keeps telling people "Oh, everything is just fine. Your cruise will operate as scheduled" when they know full well that, for weeks now, their ships have been having major problems getting up and down the rivers. This lack of honesty is going to come back and bite them in the butt.

Just got off the River Beatrice's last cruise of the year. We only had 86 passengers, and the Captain told us they were deliberately sailing with a lower than normal amt. of fuel and water so as to lessen the ship's weight. I think that what the passengers put on in weight due to the delicious food may have negated his efforts. :D

Roz

When we were on the SS Antoinette in August/September, the pool was emptied for one day while we traversed a particularly shallow area on our cruise from Amsterdam to Basel.

Bub,

That's interesting. Corroborates what our captain told us about the liquids adding a lot of weight. In some places he said we only a 1 meter clearance between the ship and the river bottom. Yikes! :eek:

Roz

Bub,

 

That's interesting. Corroborates what our captain told us about the liquids adding a lot of weight. In some places he said we only a 1 meter clearance between the ship and the river bottom. Yikes! :eek:

 

Roz

"A pint's a pound the world around." Same principle in metric, but it doesn't rhyme :D

Bub,

 

That's interesting. Corroborates what our captain told us about the liquids adding a lot of weight. In some places he said we only a 1 meter clearance between the ship and the river bottom. Yikes! :eek:

 

Roz

Roz, are you sure that the captain said there was 1 meter under the boat? One meter is 39 inches or 3 ft 9 in.

Yes, I'm sure. I know, sounds incredible. There were places where there appeared to be no current at all. If someone else was on this cruise and can correct me if I didn't hear right, I would welcome it.

Roz

One metre sounds really dangerous, in fact. Reminds me of a ferry crossing in what used to be Yugoslavia. One lorry on one side tipped the balance a bit too much for my liking. Water slowly come onto the ferry. It did not help that someone said "a ferry sank here three weeks ago". I held my breath and was glad to be on firm ground again minutes after. One metre would have made me really nervous, I mean some of the ground is not gravel and sand but very hard rock. :eek:

Quote Kester:

"The draft can be adjust somewhat by lessening weight but it not very significant. Our Avalon captain said that getting all pax off the ship made only ONE centimeter difference. Blowing water ballast helped a little more.

But Vikings ship construction is significantly different. They start out drafting about 18 inches more than, say, an Avalon ship. That's far too much to overcome by blowing ballast and getting the pax off the ship. Otherwise, that's exactly what they'd do. They would offload the people, blow the ballast, and sail on down river whereupon the people could reboard the same ship. Obviously, they are unable to do that so the ships are getting stuck all up and down the river while other cruise lines are getting through. And their cruises are turned into bus tours.

This wouldn't be so bad if the travelers were being informed ahead of time by Viking so that could make a go/no go decision before they left home. But there are too many reports that Viking keeps telling people "Oh, everything is just fine. Your cruise will operate as scheduled" when they know full well that, for weeks now, their ships have been having major problems getting up and down the rivers. This lack of honesty is going to come back and bite them in the butt."

It is interesting that the captain said it makes only one centimetre difference taking all the passengers off. That would certainly not help in the Rhine gorge at the moment. Of course, draining water that is not needed (like a pool in November ;)) makes more sense then.

About the Viking ships: according to the Neptun Werft website, the new Viking longships have a draft of around 1.60m. That warf builds both the Viking ships and has built the latest Arosa ships. Both companies' ships for the Rhine have almost identical specifications, by the way, but differ considerably in design.

As it has been stated on CC several times that "Viking ... draft 1.90m" but the warf gives "about 1.60m" can anybody clarify this matter? Thanks.

notamermaid

Every source I've seen gives Viking ships as 1.9 meter draft. If they were, indeed, 1.6 like Avalon, there would not be all those Viking ships stuck all over Europe unable to sail in the low water.

Don't get on this forum much, but the thread caught my eye, so I thought I'd throw a couple of cents in.

All but the largest of ocean going ships (cargo and cruise) usually will have an under keel clearance policy of no less than 3 meters (10 feet). These ships are much larger, go faster, and experience much more in the way of tidal and weather influences than the river boats, so a 1 meter under keel is not unusual.

GMT: while correct in converting 1 meter to 39 inches, that is 3 feet 3 inches, not 3 feet 9 inches.

Roz: I would believe the 1 meter clearance is fairly common in times of low water, but you do realize that notamermaid said that a ship was reported with a 15 centimeter clearance, or 0.15 meter (6"), which would be sort of an emergency situation.

CPT Trips: I tried to find out facts about Viking's propulsion, and while the word hybrid keeps appearing, the only thing I could see was that it was a diesel electric plant, the same as large cruise ships, but I don't know if other, older river cruise boats used direct drive diesels. Diesel electric is much more efficient for a ship with a significant hotel load. Hybrid engines in marine parlance means that the engine can burn liquid and gaseous fuels at the same time. If the ship indeed uses LNG as part of the fuel load, it may result in an increase in deadweight due to the additional fuel handling systems, but I would not think it would account for a 30cm difference in draft.

While the passengers do affect the draft, 200 pax @ 200 lbs/pax is only about 18 metric tons, and drinking water usage would be 25-50 metric tons per day (depending on how much off ship services like laundry are done). Cruise ships and river boats tend to carry very little water ballast, since there is not a lot of variance in the amount of "cargo" carried from day to day (people, water, food, fuel), compared to cargo ships which frequently sail empty or partially full, and use the ballast to compensate.

A swimming pool 4' deep by 30' by 10' would hold about 34 metric tons of water.

notamermaid: for your ferry, it sounds more like a problem of "freeboard" and "stability" than draft and under keel clearance. In fact, a smaller under keel clearance would result in not sinking, even if the ship flooded completely. I haven't looked at either the Viking site or the builder's yard, so I can't comment on the discrepancy of the drafts, but there are a couple of things to think about. When a shipyard builds a ship, it is launched very nearly "dry" (no water, no fuel), so the draft be different from normal operations. There is also a draft that the empty ship will float at, which is different from the "load line" or maximum draft the ship can load to, so one site may refer to light draft and one to loaded draft. A further complication is that drafts of ships change from stationary conditions to underway conditions, due to the fact that most propeller shafts are not completely horizontal, so the stern will rise, and the bow will sink a little when underway. Squat is another phenomenon that affects ships. When a ship moves close to the bottom of a channel or river, it creates a low pressure in the thin water area under the keel, which sucks the ship lower in the water. Of course, size and speed are the major contributors to this, but river boats have been using this for decades. The Cunard ships and large RCI ships use this weekly to increase the clearance under the Verrazano bridge in NYC.

The draft can be adjust somewhat by lessening weight but it not very significant. Our Avalon captain said that getting all pax off the ship made only ONE centimeter difference. Blowing water ballast helped a little more.

But Vikings ship construction is significantly different. They start out drafting about 18 inches more than, say, an Avalon ship. That's far too much to overcome by blowing ballast and getting the pax off the ship. Otherwise, that's exactly what they'd do. They would offload the people, blow the ballast, and sail on down river whereupon the people could reboard the same ship. Obviously, they are unable to do that so the ships are getting stuck all up and down the river while other cruise lines are getting through. And their cruises are turned into bus tours.

This wouldn't be so bad if the travelers were being informed ahead of time by Viking so that could make a go/no go decision before they left home. But there are too many reports that Viking keeps telling people "Oh, everything is just fine. Your cruise will operate as scheduled" when they know full well that, for weeks now, their ships have been having major problems getting up and down the rivers. This lack of honesty is going to come back and bite them in the butt.

A bit of misinformation here...bias against Viking again?? You can check current draft for any ship on the vessel tracking web site, Most of the Viking ships are stated 1.6 to 1.7 meters.

"Bus Tour" is not true. There are short bus trips between ships- like 2 hours from Passau to Nuremberg or just a few minutes on the Rhine. There are other companies that are doing true "bus tours" because they don't have the ships in strategic spots along the river. Maybe check out the Scenic and Uniworld, even AMA, statistics before making "expert" statements regarding Viking. 2 weeks ago they were all rafted together at the ship holding spot 3KM's south of Passau- Passau-Lindau.

Yes, I was on Viking 2 weeks ago, we cleared the Rhine Gorge with 15CM's under the hull. It was closed to large boats the next day. Bus trip at Passau went like clockwork, no loss of tour time in Regensburg or Nuremburg. and..really not very much river time lost as that short distance would have been done at night. What is your experience on Viking?

A bit of misinformation here...bias against Viking again?? You can check current draft for any ship on the vessel tracking web site, Most of the Viking ships are stated 1.6 to 1.7 meters.

 

"Bus Tour" is not true. There are short bus trips between ships- like 2 hours from Passau to Nuremberg or just a few minutes on the Rhine. There are other companies that are doing true "bus tours" because they don't have the ships in strategic spots along the river. Maybe check out the Scenic and Uniworld, even AMA, statistics before making "expert" statements regarding Viking. 2 weeks ago they were all rafted together at the ship holding spot 3KM's south of Passau- Passau-Lindau.

 

 

 

Yes, I was on Viking 2 weeks ago, we cleared the Rhine Gorge with 15CM's under the hull. It was closed to large boats the next day. Bus trip at Passau went like clockwork, no loss of tour time in Regensburg or Nuremburg. and..really not very much river time lost as that short distance would have been done at night. What is your experience on Viking?

My my aren't you a lucky ducky :)

Hello chengkp75,

Thank you for your very informative post.

As regards the ferry, yes, I realise the difference to the situation on the river. While I trust the captain and crew in any situation, they have been trained, while I am the layman, there are times when I do not have firm ground under my feet that the unpredictability of any body of water will make me nervous. So I was more referring to that. Living close to the river I have grown up with the words "do not go to close to the water" and I would discourage anyone from trying to swim in the Rhine.

The draft of the Viking ships is still a little puzzling, comparing deadweight given by the warf to the consistent 1.90m that keeps coming up in posts. I have seen 1.60m and 1.70m, and indeed, as posted by me previously, the Arosa ships are very similar to the Viking ships. Your comments about the new engine design are very interesting.

What makes the situation on the Rhine more dangerous at the moment, despite all modern navigation equipment, is the fact that the river is so low that the navigation channel is so narrow and shallow that it is now very uneven and the 1.90m that are normally guaranteed by the autorities and are necessary for more or less unimpeded sailing in the Rhine gorge cannot be maintained. By that I mean unlike a bathtub with even sides and bottom, the navigation channel is ragged with sandbanks and rocks. The ships' propellers redistribute the loose gravel, rock and sand thereby relocating the shallow patches. That is why dretchers are often in place on the Rhine at different locations.

notamermaid

Like the Rhine, many of the world's great rivers rely on "free" dredging by ships to maintain the shipping channel. One of the most notable that I've traversed is the Rio Platte in Argentina. Somewhat different to the Rhine, in that the channel twists and turns and in many places is perpendicular to the current, but the larger tankers coming up river routinely are what we call "floating aground" where the majority of the ship is within inches of the bottom, and the propeller is several inches deeper than the bottom, and carves a new channel as it goes.

On the Amazon, where I've gone 700 miles upriver to Manaus, the river, not just the shipping channel changes so much that the latest updated electronic charts on our radars showed us crossing over islands or cutting several hundred feet across land at a bend.

On the Mississippi, the boat captains routinely speak to each other all day on the radio, reporting the shifting sand bars and "snags" formed by trees and things floating down the river.

Another problem that low water levels causes, besides the problem of "squat" that can suck a boat down to the bottom, is "canal effect", which is similar in that the passage of water between the side of the ship and the side of the deeper shipping channel will generate a low pressure and suck the ship/boat sideways into the side of the channel.

I don't have any personal experience with the river cruises, but I would expect that it costs a bit to have to ferry the pax around the shallow spots, and the company would make all possible efforts to avoid this, like sailing under capacity, and with less than a full fuel load. As you say, the ability to make a transit of any section of river may vary day by day, or even hour by hour, which may explain, partly, why the company does not advise in advance whether or not the boat will be able to complete the trip.

Great information. Thank you!

Hi River Cruisers- I'm on the AmaPrima 12/14, with family and friends and noticed a few posters say that some ships make it though without issue. Does it have something to do with the specific boat size, weight, etc.? Just curious. We did the Rhine last year on Viking without a blip on the trip. LOVED it.

I just read all the comments in Thus thread. So my question is: When are the best times to sail the Danube to avoid being "bused" or running agroind?

We hope to take our first river cruise next year. But have many ocean sailings behind us.

...You can check current draft for any ship on the vessel tracking web site,...