RDVIK2016

You are probably right about it being Einar. Sigrun and Einar were paired up for a round or two of ship swaps because they were scheduled to start a opposite ends of Rhine Getaway cruises on the same day. I think the ship swaps are very efficient and well-planned, although long bus rides are not something to look forward to. However it sounds like your Mom has a good attitude. Some 87 year olds (and many much younger) seem to be a bit fearful or at least very irritated at the prospect. It also seems not everyone is aware that a disruption could occur and have not prepared themselves for it. All you can do is make the best of it.

Low bridges can be a problem on the German part of the Danube when the water level is high, and boats sometimes can not get under them even when lowering the wheelhouse and taking on as much ballast as possible. On the Rhein-Main-Donau Canal there are low bridges and the wheelhouse has to be lowered for them, but the water level in the canal is controlled to the degree that it never gets too high to make it under. A bridge at Bogen on the Danube can be a particular problem. Once on the canal the wheelhouse on Viking Freya did not get lowered in time and the two crew members in the wheelhouse were killed when it hit a bridge over the canal near Erlangen. On our Romantic Danube cruise a few years ago which continued beyond Regensburg, into the canal and on to Nürnberg, we all had to stay off the upper deck and all furniture and awnings were laid down.

I will now enjoy observing how quickly the water levels drop (or not) depending on the weather during the next days and weeks. As far as the Rhine is concerned I think the areas to watch for rain would be most of Switzerland (except for around Lake Geneva), and cities along the Moselle and Main.

It has been a surprise to me that the water levels in the rivers rise so far so quickly, even without heavy rains over a large portion of the entire watershed. Now I can better understand when there are unusually heavy rains that bad floods can come quickly, such as on the Ahr last year or on the Danube at Deggendorf and Passau a few years ago. RDVIK

If a Viking passenger on this board gets the opportunity when getting a tour of the wheelhouse, please ask the captain, engineer, or a mate what is the minimum draft of their ship and what is the minimum channel depth they require.

I appreciate the way that ELWIS only gives a Vorhersage/Forecast for the current and next days and anything beyond that is only an Abschätzung, as in "estimate" or even "appraisal". (Better that a wild guess, but maybe something my former co-workers might call a SWAG - Scientific Wild Ass Guess)

I'm just trying to figure it out in general terms. It just confuses people to see the Pegel as the number always referenced when it is the depth of the navigation channel and draught of the boats and barges that really matters. I live on a tidal estuary that is dredged to 40 feet for the ships and submarines that use the port, so the things that have to be considered in river navigation are so different from what I have been exposed to.

No, it's linear, one to one. Using your increase in Pegel to 62cm from 31cm, the channel would also ad 31cm, from 143cm to 174cm. Leave it to the Germans to come up with this system. And to keep things interesting they use a different manner of calculation on the Danube. First of all the placement of the Pegel scale is somewhat arbitrary and depends on the contours it the river bank. The zero mark will usually stay below water. There also something called a GlW (Gleichwertigerwasserstand). They have taken measurements over a period of several years and determine what is a water level below which the river, on average, does not fall more frequently than 20 ice-free days in the year. This gets recalculated every few years. At Kaub that level is 78cm on the Pegel scale. So then you measure the depth of the navigation channel below the GlW level. At Kaub that is 1.9m. If the Pegel is 31cm that is 47cm below the GlW, so the channel is 47cm below what it would be if the water level was at the 190 when at GlW. So 190cm less 47cm is 143cm. At 62cm Pegel subtract 16 from the 190 and you get 174cm. For every Pegel location the captain has to know the channel depth below the GlW and how much the current Pegel reading differs from that. He's got other things to consider also. Is the bottom completely free of debris like gravel that has moved in, how much his boat's draft is effect by his speed, how much has been able to unload weight to sit a bit higher in the water, etc, etc. At Koblenz the GlW happens to also be 78, but the channel is 210cm deep at that point compated to 190 for Kaub. Today's Pegel is 35. navigation channel you should still have 167cm (35-78+210 = 167) At Cologne the GlW is 139, today's Pegel is 75, and the channel is 250cm below the GlW. So you have in the navigation channel 75-139+250 = 186cm in the channel.

Viking Rhine Getaway cruises start seven days a week from Amsterdam and Basel, so the boats on other itineraries European Sojourn, Grand European Tour, Paris to Swiss Alps (from Basel) would all have to start on the same day as another Viking cruise. There have even been times when they have two boats traveling on the same timetable on popular itineraries.

Nice that Zons looks to have a nearly complete city wall!

I am prone to take those 1.5m and 1.6m drafts of the Viking Longships with a grain of salt. Actually Binnenschifferforum lists Egdir as having a draft of 2.0 m. The draft can be a bit variable, although not much on a passenger vessel. Longships' maximum draft is just about always listed as 2 meters and it seems that they operate as if their minimum operational draft is not less than about 1.8m. RDVIK

"Kaub at 31 cm" doesn't mean that the river is 12.2 inches deep in the navigation channel. When then Pegel scale is at 31cm then the channel is 143 cm deep. Some ships to have draughts less than 1.4m so can get by depending on a couple of other factors.

Wow! Are the Pegel gauges usually marked below zero? Some of the Pegels are given in such I high number it would seem not to be necessary to extend the scales below zero.

My wife and I will be cruising the Rhine next April and are confident water levels should not be a problem (unless you have a huge snowfall this winter with heavy spring rains - then maybe too much water). So we assume we will dock in Rüdesheim. Is the Asbach Uralt distillery worth a visit? - Somewhere I read they severely reduced the amount of the distillery available on tours. RDVIK

However if you did not take the bus from Strasbourg to Koblenz/Braubach you might miss the excursion boat through the Gorge. (I don't think they are busing passengers all the way to Cologne. Yet!)

For the last couple of weeks it does not look like any of the Viking ships on the Basel to Amsterdam itinerary have gone past Strasbourg and coming from the other direction from Amsterdam they get as far as Koblenz or Braubach. As far as being docked in Strasbourg for 2 to 3 nights, it might be a good opportunity to stay ashore late and not have to worry about getting back in time to get underway. Now that the Covid restrictions have eased the tram runs again from Kehl to Strasbourg. From the dock it can't be much more than a five minute walk to the tram stop and a 20 minute ride to the middle of Strasbourg. If you are good walkers you could walk across the bridge. RDVIK

Cruise Critic needs WOW and Sad face emojis! I sure don't want to give this a heart or a thank you.

Very interesting. Alisa seems to have a shallow draught and has come all the way from a shipyard on the Sava river in Serbia. This will have to be an important consideration for all cruise companies. I wonder if they might have to give up some features for that shallow draught. I saw another boat from that shipyard in Serbia with a draught of 1,3 m, but still with a length of 135 m. Viking has taken delivery of its last Longships I think. Their next series will probably be able to sail shallower waters.

notamermaid, Thanks for mentioning that article. It was surprising to find the entire article with not paywall. Is it just that SZ are allowing articles on this subject to be read for free? FAZ also? Not sure if you intended to include the link to the SZ, so I found it and another article from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. And as you say translation programs do a good job (except they don't often attempt to convey the subjunctive mood (Konjunktiv I). grins RDVIK https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/schifffahrt-niedrigwasser-bringt-binnenschiffer-in-die-bredouille-dpa.urn-newsml-dpa-com-20090101-220812-99-359903 https://www.faz.net/agenturmeldungen/dpa/niedrigwasser-bremst-binnenschifffahrt-in-bayern-18238760.html

Back on page 21 of this topic, post #510, is a chart that shows average river levels though the year compared with this year. It appears that September and October do not, on average, see better levels than July and August. Not very promising is it? In 2018 the lowest levels were in October. Things can work out though. On the Danube in October 2019 we were on a Viking Ingvi that could not get from Bratislava to Budapest. I appreciated having a delay in Bratislava before the boat moved to Komárom, Hungary. What a neat little city is Bratislava! From Komárom we were bused to Budapest for our excursions and back to Komárom. Viking did an unbelievable job getting us to our respective excursions and arranging for dinner in a large banquet hall/restaurant and after that we had an amazing tour of the Jewish Quarter. There was another glitsch out of Viking's control when we could not go up to palace hill with the Fishermen's Bastion because traffic was diverted due to Putin being there to visit his pal Orbán. So we had a tour up at the Citadel which wasn't too bad. I was so thankful though that we were still going to have the extension in Budapest - so we bused back in to the hotel the next day.

Unreal photos of a few spots on rivers in Europe at the link. https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/08/11/in-pictures-europes-mighty-rivers-are-drying-up-in-the-climate-driven-drought

Hi cruisinlawn, These measurements of river depth have had me scratching my head. Thanks to notamermaid and some reading elsewhere I think I am beginning to get a grasp on it. So I am going to give this whole thing a shot if only to help organize my own thoughts and to see if someone helps me by pointing out errors. Like notamermaid said the Pegel number is read on a scale placed at the embankment like an oversized yardstick. The placement of the 0 point of the scale is somewhat arbitrary, but you want it in such a position the river surface never falls below the 0 mark. This number changes every day. The authorities have Pegel records going way back and determine a Pegel below which the river surface falls 20 days a year. At Kaub that is a Pegel of 78cm. (This number is called the Gleichwertiger Wasserstand or GLW). Then they measure down from the the 78cm mark to the bottom of the river in the navigation channel. At Kaub that is 190cm. This just the depth under the GLW (Tiefe unter GLW - TuGLW) The captains will have all the GLW and other data on readily available tables. So when they have a Pegel of 50cm at Kaub that is 28cm below the mark at which the navigation channel is 190 cm. Therefore the actual water depth is 190cm - 28cm = 162cm. If your ship needs more than 162cm to pass then you'll need to do a ship swap. To figure out if your particular ship can pass you'll have to know the draught of the vessel, if there are reports of debris on the bottom, and how risk-averse your captain is. Viking Rhein Getaway captains have the luxury of knowing if they have a sister ship coming the other way so they can both stop short of the shallow spots and swap passengers. By the way on the Danube they don't use GLW. They have a different way to figure navigation depth. I hope I got that close to correct. RDVIK

About this gravel that gets moved around and reduces the depth of the navigation channel: Do you know how often they attempt to measure it or they know when a ship scrapes it? I assume gravel makes up a Fehltiefe, correct?

These are definitely going on a list of favorite German words: Unter- and Überschreitungswarscheinlichkeit. We could wager the over-under for each day.

OK, now I get it. We did the Viking Romantic Danube in 2016 when they were still ending the cruise by traveling the canal to Nürnberg rather than terminating at Regensburg. The spot you point out is where they tied up to have us transfer to buses for the tours of Nürnberg. While we were in town the boat moved further up the canal to Erlangen and that is where we were docked overnight. From there we took the coach to Prague for an extension.