RDVIK2016

Your comment sent me on a search to learn a little about all the locks as far upstream as Basel. I was not very aware of the geography and did not realize that nine of the ten locks are French - on canals or canalized branches of the river that are on the French side of the border. Only Iffezheim Schleuse is German. It must be a pain in the neck for the Germans when river traffic gets disrupted for by a French labor dispute and for the French if the shoe were on the other foot. (Not to mention the Swiss who would not be able to do anything about it.)

We are about seven weeks out from our cruise so I am beginning to watch the 6-Wochen-Vorhersage für den Pegel Kaub. At least the current prediction does show a probable increase from this week's level, but I would be relieved to see that climatological based bar in the middle move up a bit. Hopefully there is more precipitation over the next few weeks. I guess some snow melt, to the extent there is snow in the Rhein watershed, will probably help provide water in the river by then. Fingers crossed / Daumen drücken.

I am getting a Server Fehler 404 at the url you posted. Was it supposed to link to a story about the Beueler Weiberfastnacht?

Notmermaid, I have been looking for you to start up a 2023 water level board. Your posts on the water levels and many other topics are always so informative. I certainly enjoyed participating in discussions on the 2022 board, but now is getting even more interesting with just over 70 days to go until we embark the ship in Amsterdam.

That looks like such a great place to visit! I like Art Nouveau. Our illustrator daughter introduced us to Alfons Mucha and we expanded our interest in other artists and architecture of Jugendstil from there. I hope our cruise next spring takes us past that area in daylight! Someday we will have to return to Königswinter for a visit. Some of the art exhibits shown in that nice looking museum remind me of Hudson River and White Mountain school paintings. And then there seems to be an opportunity to dive into the dragon theme connected with Fáfnir/Fafner from Wagner and Der Ring des Nibelungen. Is there any cave on the Drachenfels hill that legend holds to be Fáfnir's Höhle? My favorite dragon story is loosely connected with the 1431 Battle of Taus (Domažlice) from the Fifth Crusade against the Hussites. The people in that area on the other side of Germany have a "Drachenhöhle/Dragon's Cave" that is just a converted warehouse to display the huge robotic dragon that takes part in a yearly folk festival. (photo attached with the dragon slayer Udo - not St. George or Sigurd/Siegfried)

I love the colors of autumn. On our last trip to Germany we caught part of "Goldener Oktober" in Bavaria. Do you still call a return of warm weather in the fall "Altweibersommer"?

Thank you for this information. One of my sons was stationed in the USAF at Spangdahlem and told me about the volcanic character of the geology nearby and my youngest son has studied geology at university, so this is of much interest to us. CO2 is a byproduct of using carbon atoms from the burning of natural gas and combining them with oxygen atoms. With the cut backs in natural gas supplies from Russia to western Europe, I hear that there is a developing shortage of CO2 for the breweries. I wonder how much natural CO2 can be economically captured, although it could be brought on line in the short term.

Hi CPT, My DW and I have talked about setting ourselves up to take advantage of last minute deals. I just recently retired and her retirement is coming up at the end of the year. We have a cruise scheduled for this coming April. After that we will be keeping our eyes open for good deals. Cruises, flights, bus tours, international, domestic, whatever! Let's go!

Well, my wife is not of the same opinion and it is more important that my wife be happy than to save money on the the cabin. We have been on two cruises and have reservations for a third, all in staterooms with a veranda - I doubt that will change. I figure we could do maybe five cruises in "aquarium class" for the price of four or less in upper deck veranda cabins - especially if we would travel at non-peak times.

I smile every time I hear the phrase "aquarium class". I would actually like to try the a lower deck cabin sometime. It would save money and we try to out of our rooms as much as possible anyway.

Wow, that's a great find!

11 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said: But based on all the maritime engineering education we have been getting here, whether she's being pushed from behind [= much greater than 135m length total] or the side [= much wider channel required] – how does this work in such low water??? (I apologize if this is a duplicate - I wrote this when I did not see my previous answer appear - Not knowing how long it takes for the comments to upload I just figured I would just send another version of my answer.) Even in the latest low water situation in the Rhine Gorge were not two lightly loaded cargo barges able to pass going in opposite directions? If the authorities were to limit river traffic to one direction then two vessels with shallow drafts lashed to together side to side could certainly transit the gorge. With a little further sleuthing I found that KV Johanna II, took over from SB Argo in pushing/tugging MS Alisa when she got to the Rhine. Johnanna was lashed to the port side of Alisa and tugged her along to the final destination. In photos I saw Johanna was also carrying a few containers, but was extremely lightly loaded. (SB=Schubboot/Pushboat or Schleppboot/Pull tugboat; KV=Koppelverband an integrated barge/tugboat)

Are you referring to MS Alisa being pushed from Serbia by the Schubboot Argo? Alisa's draft is given as only 1.41m on Binnenschifferforum. I wonder if that will be her draft when fully outfitted. Maybe she needs even less depth now as she just came from the shipyard. 34cm on the Pegel at Kaub should give them 1.46m in the channel - doesn't leave much safety margin. Argo is listed at 1.2m

Jazzbeau, I gave my guesses about the draft of Viking Longships on post #443 of this board on 2 Aug. Somewhere I had got the idea the these ships have a draft of 1.9m, Notamermaid, provided a link to a Neptun Werft page that gave the draft as 1.6m. Binnenschifferforum usually gives the Tiefgang/draft of Viking Longships as "2.0m" or "2.0m max", but occasionally does throw in a "1.6m" or "1.8" (or leaves the Tiefgang blank). I have concluded (guessed) that they operate normally at about 1.8m on the Rhein and 2.0 wherever they have to clear under low bridges (German Danube, Main, some canals). This is what I wrote to explain my reasoning: notamermaid, Thank you for finding that info. 1.6 meters must be a ship as delivered by the Werft. Anywhere else they're giving 1.8 to 2.0m. Binnenschifferforum has been starting a thread for each ship as they are introduced and in most cases they list the Tiefgang (draught) as 2,00 m. Sometimes they ad "max". On one ship I checked, Tialfi, they did use 1,60. I guess the standard way to report draught is to give the maximum draught which at the same time corresponds to the minimum air draught (Fixpunkt) to clear low overpasses/bridges. Once you get crew, passengers, food load-out, etc., on board you probably can't trim the boat any more shallow than about 1.8 meters. I found a couple of photos of Viking Hlin out of the water where the forward and aft draught marks were clearly visible. The 2 meter mark approximately matches that red bumper line just above the black anti-fouling paint on the lower hull. Any photos of Longships underway don't seem to show more than about 20 centimeters of black paint exposed so they must be cruising at about 1.8 to 1.9 meters of draught.

Just watched the BAW Profil video. If I had a chance I would visit the facility in Karlsruhe.

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!