The river Main infos and river cruising experiences

[sjde]

Yeah- that’s the case with a lot of things- multiple pronunciations that are accepted.
BTW, to me, Door-oh  and Dough- row sound the same- just different ways of  spelling it out. 

[Canal archive]

Okay hers another two Doo rou or Do row.

 

The Douro was a notoriously dangerous river as were several in France that although not used by river cruise companies are by barge companies now. They were used for moving wood as in fire wood from inland to Paris. These rivers until canalised were also extremely dangerous. 
When you really get to the nitty gritty for the lock size reason it’s cash, how cheaply/inexpensively can we complete this project? Then the vessels are built to fit. Apart from most probably the canalised Main it had to fit vessels from either end.

[notamermaid]

On the Main the alterations to make it more commercially viable go back about 200 years. The Main was partly shallow and in summer lacking water so compared to the Rhine it could not sustain regular traffic with ships of a deep draft, although it has always been used for transport and was of importance for market ships, i.e. trade from one market town to another. In the 19th century the Rhine was far ahead with that. However, measures where taken to alter the river so that more load could be carried. Problem was twice the opening of a competing railway line. Being in the middle of the country, the Main does not have a source in very high mountains and meanders slowly towards the Rhine - at least compared to the Douro. Still, if you take the source of one of the two source rivers as measure, the Main has an altitude difference of 805m to cover before it meets the Rhine.

 

@Canal archive the Main was also used for wood transport, taking it in floats from the forests along the Upper Main to the Lower Main and Rhine. This ended in the 1950s.

 

notamermaid

 

 

[Canal archive]

Notamermaid there have been some re-enactments of the wood transport from the Canal du Nivernais to the Seine and to Paris.

[notamermaid]

1 hour ago, Canal archive said:

Notamermaid there have been some re-enactments of the wood transport from the Canal du Nivernais to the Seine and to Paris.

Oh right, interesting. Same is done from I think the Gutach river onto the Rhine. That is somewhere in Baden-Württemberg. It used to be a big industry on the Rhine, you know for the Netherlands towns an shipbuilding. Could be a nerd question: how many German forests and mountains are there built into the Netherlands? 😁

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

Well, the flooding is back. Heavy rain has made the Main and its tributaries rise. This is Würzburg:

 

The Main further downstream has been draining that excess water into the Rhine since Friday but this is not a wave one on one, i.e. this rise is not seen in the same jump in figures close to the mouth at Mainz. But the Middle Rhine is seeing high levels now.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

Würzburg gauge over the last four weeks:

 

Well, compared to some other years this is nothing. Let us look back at a different leap year - 1784. In most of Europe - something you can spot in many old river towns that you visit - it was a terrible winter of flooding. Markings on buildings, either old or as a modern reconstruction of the event, tell of a natural disaster ingrained in European history. On 27 February in that year, the Tauber bridge at Wertheim was destroyed. On 28 February the old bridge in Würzburg was severely damaged.

 

Here is a modern gauge to illustrate what the level was: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalenenhochwasser_1342#/media/Datei:Pegel,_Würzburg.PNG

 

This article from 2022 has the headline "Wertheim: A town full of water". It has graphs in a photo depicting the heights of floods over the centuries. At the end of the article there is a photo showing the markings of two floods on a building: https://www.main-echo.de/sonderthemen/feste-events/wertheimerzeitung/wertheim-eine-stadt-voller-wasser-art-7513651

 

The flood of 1784 is an anomaly which is attributed to a volcanic eruption in Iceland the previous year. I have written about that in the thread of the Rhine here: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2984992-rhine-water-levels-2024-and-similar-topics/page/4/#comments

 

 

notamermaid

 

Edited February 28 by notamermaid
added link

[notamermaid]

To the present day. We have mentioned lock maintenance on the Danube but at the same time the Main river locks are being seen to as well. Work starts on 10 April.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

Lock maintenance is finished and the river level on the Main is good. An explanation for those only having recently found this thread: When I say good I mean there is sufficient water in the river to sail and the locks are keeping it that way. The Main river basin tends to get low on water and the engineering done on the Main Danube Canal helps to divert water from the Danube basin to the Main river. It is relatively common for gauges on the Main to show low levels in late spring, summer and autumn but as the river is dug so deep there is hardly ever a problem. The whole navigable river is controlled by locks (apart from a tiny but that is only allowed for small pleasure craft and never sailed by ships). Although the river is long enough to warrant sailing without the Rhine or the Danube it is hardly ever done. Admittedly, this following river cruise also uses the Canal but neither river on either side of the Main (see *comment coming later). Saga has this offer on the "Spirit of the Moselle" which will enter service in 2025. Nice of the company to dedicated a whole morning to Schweinfurt: https://travel.saga.co.uk/cruises/river/where-we-go/rhine-river-cruises/gems-of-the-main-river.aspx?boardbasis=AI

The cruise ends in Mainz, just after the confluence with the Rhine, so yes, *I admit it is a bit of sailing on the Rhine river - about 1.5 km.

 

The airport Frankfurt is nearby but Mainz is a nice alternative for disembarkation, also seeing that car and coach can reach the UK in eight to ten hours from there. A no flight option works.

 

notamermaid