Danube water levels 2022 and similar topics - plus tips and info

[Seattle1964]

2 hours ago, gnome12 said:

The River Duchess is a 110m ship. It might be holed up in Budapest because no other ship is available for a ship swap. 

Yeah... I knew that.  🤪  Was thinking and typing at the same time.  That information first came from someone on the ship.  It wasn't a ship-swap issue as the Duchess was supposed to continue on to Amsterdam to pick up new people.  So, if they called off the Aug 1 cruise on a ship with a lower draft than a 135m ship, the water is going to be too low for a loaded 135m.  Another traveler is boarding in Regesburg instead of Passau because it can't make port and be loaded in Passau.

[Host Jazzbeau]

3 hours ago, Canal archive said:

Picture this - shallow river, water dumped from from river boat, passengers on shore, ropes on boat to shore and passengers hauling on the ropes. No coaches needed or ship swaps ohhh what fun, I think not. Fingers crossed or a dance for rain.

@notamermaid posted a picture recently of a new prototype-design river ship with special windows for the Aquarium-class passengers to row the ship through the low-water areas.  The next idea will be exterior handles to allow passengers to portage the ship around the low spots.  These cruises will cost extra as 'Roman-Viking cultural immersion' sailings!  🤣

[kiarmuid]

On 7/19/2022 at 3:32 PM, TAC1582 said:

I'm on the Viking Romantic Danube cruise thes Sunday. I was just notified that the cruise will start in Passau instead of Regensburg. Busses wii take people to Regensburg on day 2 for shore excursions. Day 3 will be in Passau as normally scheduled. (See below). Hopefully the rest of the cruise to Budapest will go on with no other disruptions.

--‐-------------

Due to low water levels on the Danube River near Passau, your ship will be unable to reach its regular embarkation port in Regensburg and you will now embark in Passau (75 miles east of Regensburg). As a result of these changes, we have made the following adjustments to your program:

Day 1:	On arrival at the airport on Day 1 of your itinerary, please collect your luggage, exit customs and find the airport representative in the arrivals area for transfer to your ship. If you are already in Europe traveling independently or are unable to locate the Representative, proceed to the regular docking location for transfer to your ship.
Day 2:	Transfer by motorcoach to your shore excursions in Regensburg.
Day 3:	Resume previously advised itinerary.

For guests joining us on our pre-trip extension
For guests joining us for our pre-trip extension, you will be transferred to your ship at the new docking location on Day 1 of your main itinerary.

 

Does this mean that is  you traveling independently you just have to get to Regensburg and Viking will transport you to Passau?  Or are you on your own to get to Passau?

Edited July 20, 2022 by kiarmuid

[CPT Trips]

3 hours ago, Canal archive said:

Picture this - shallow river, water dumped from from river boat, passengers on shore, ropes on boat to shore and passengers hauling on the ropes. No coaches needed or ship swaps ohhh what fun, I think not. Fingers crossed or a dance for rain.

I found this in an old KD catalog. They discounted the Köln to Strasbourg direction for obvious reasons. 

 

[Seattle1964]

3 hours ago, Seattle1964 said:

Another traveler is boarding in Regesburg instead of Passau because it can't make port and be loaded in Passau.

I really need to slow down when I type.  Reverse Regensburg and Passau in my previous post.

[momofthre3]

On 7/19/2022 at 8:55 AM, steamboats said:

 

Because they don´t know a thing... the call centers or offices are in the US or whereever. Nobody in those call centers does have a clue about the current status of a river in Europe (or elsewhere).

 

I remember waking up at 6 am in the morning and checking my mails. A friend of mine wrote me that my ship won´t be going where it was supposed to go... We were supposed to fly to the US on Thursday. We immediately contacted the cruise line and the first reply was... no the cruise will be as scheduled. Not until we replied but your captain onboard told us that due to low water the ship is not able to go but will be rerouted they checked and then admitted we´re right. We had to rearrange our connection in the US (for some good extra money). Onboard we learned that many of the pax didn´t get the information until Friday - the cruise started on Saturday. Sometimes it´s good to have friends 😉 - the bad thing was that due to the itinerary change we didn´t meet our friend as planned. The good thing we met with other friends...

 

steamboats

This same thing happened to us a couple of years ago on Royal Caribbean going to Australia!  A friend called to tell us they understood the cruise was cancelled.  A captain had hit a reef so there was propeller damage. We had no word for Royal.  When we called, they didn't even know about the cancellation.  We were supposed to leave the next evening! Anyone that did not know in advance, were literally stuck in Australia and having to personally pay for lodging and food.  We did get a free cruise and money back on the trip, so Royal treated us well and we used the credit to upgrade to a grand suite for a trip to Australia and New Zealand the next year...It's good to have friends 🙂

[steamboats]

@Seattle1964 I was only talking about the Viking longships. All Viking longships on the Rhine/Main/Danube are the same size. Viking longships are known for a deep draft - one of the deepest in the river cruise industry.

 

BTW the draft has nothing to do with the length or width of a ship. The 110 m and the 135 m are simply standard lenghts for some areas due to the lock chamber sizes. Same for the width. Therefore the (Crystal) Mozart is not able to go upriver of Passau (and all A-Rosa ships on the Danube river) as the Mozart is too wide for the locks upriver of Passau. As well as the A-Rosa Sena which can only go downriver on the Rhine river because of her width.

 

steamboats

[Seattle1964]

50 minutes ago, steamboats said:

BTW the draft has nothing to do with the length or width of a ship.

This is technically true, however there are boundaries for any given parameter as there are not only laws of physics to ensure stability/buoyancy but hydrodynamics and river/tributary constraints , both natural and man-made.  Contemporary inland vessels are more science than art and adhere to strict regulations on design and operation.

So, you could build a ship that is as wide as it is long with a very low draught as it would displace significantly more water than the vessel, alone, weighs.  But, as you said, there are physical constraints that need to be met or you're not getting there from here and that's ignoring the poor design of such a hypothetical ship.  Since the width and length are both constrained by the lock sizes (max. width of the ship 11.4m) in order to traverse all 68 of them, there is context that can't be ignored.  Of course some are more accommodating like the Iron Gate locks (34m wide, I believe).

To further complicate matters, draught is not a static principle as "squat" affects vessels moving in shallow(er) waters.  To counter this dynamic force, the ship must reduce speed when navigating in waters close to critically low.  This effect is greater on longer vessels and is one of many square-law forces.  That is, that if the speed of the vessel is doubled, the squat force will quadruple.  It's the Bernoulli principle of water.  🙂  Speaking of Bernoulli, the height above the water line is known as the "air draught" and is also regulated by agencies as well as constrained by the physics... including the maximum draught.  So, yes, one cannot state the draught of a random vessel just by knowing the air draught dimensions, but these are very specific vessels designed for a very specific purpose and geography so it's a bit disingenuous to claim that draught, air draught, width, and length are completely independent parameters.  " draft has nothing to do with the length or width" is pretty emphatic but only true out of context. 

For the record, the 110m River Duchess is listed as 152cm draught, but the current draught is showing at 1.6m as of July 16th.  I don't know of a loaded 135m vessel with that shallow of a draught.  I think it was you that said the Viking ships were spec'd at 190cm... which, like the Duchess, isn't necessarily the real-world case.

But, hey, I'm no expert... just hard to shake 40 years of engineering even when you're retired.  🤪

Edited July 21, 2022 by Seattle1964

[Canal archive]

Seattle1964 ta for your excellent explanation so just to add ( to be completely (nurdy)  here goes.
Gauging a vessel is a fairly straight forward affair and used to be carried out regularly before wind power usually when first built. It used the depth a vessel sat in the water to work out the weight of cargo the boat could carry. I think it may still be done today but maybe not for that reason. A ship is built to certain specifications but although I don’t think this applies to river cruise vessels that much as they are usually not very old, I’m afraid to say that ships are like humans and can spread with age regardless of them being made of metal.

 

Although what I cannot understand is why these maritime architects haven’t realised that shallow draught is the way to go! On the European river system. 
Background started with RN ended with space objects.

[notamermaid]

Must get back to the subject of ship sizes and locks but for now, just a look at the most important question for today (if you want to sail the river conveniently without muscle power): how has the Danube in Bavaria reacted to the nice bit of rain in the last 18 hours? To be honest, I expected a little more, but I think I am impatient. We need to wait till the Upper Danube waters have reached Regensburg and the Lech has drained into the Danube. Perhaps the evening will tell us more. Right now, the graph at Pfelling is not looking good, get ready....... 224cm!! If this becomes official (or the slightly lower figure this morning) it will replace the old low record of 228cm from 2018.

 

As regards the river levels in Austria, I found an article published on Monday in Salzburg. It says that the levels of the Danube are low, but they do not adversely affect either barges or river cruise ships yet. So as of Monday the limited shallows in Austria were not a problem yet I assume (remember Austria has got a few locks that help to some extent). Apparently three tributaries in Austria are still feeding the Danube enough. Hopefully this is continuing. It would mean that logistics are not too troublesome, i.e. the stretch that needs to be covered is only Regensburg (or Straubing) to Vilshofen (or Passau). Your company may of course decide to extend that for reasons of docking space available or other logistical and navigational reasons that I cannot be aware of.

 

notamermaid

 

[steamboats]

3 hours ago, Canal archive said:

Although what I cannot understand is why these maritime architects haven’t realised that shallow draught is the way to go! On the European river system. 

 

That´s what all the people wondered when the Viking longships came out. But Viking didn´t show any interest in the advice of river experts. On the Mississippi river they thought they could simply copy and paste the longships of the Rhine/Main/Danube rivers. They never heard that there are no landings along the Mississippi river like those in Europe. They never heard of choking a stomp and just putting the bow into the mud. Same for the two Elbe river ships. There is a reason why Croisi Europe decided for the paddlewheelers. They can go on pretty shallow water. Again, Viking built their ships with a pretty deep draft and therefore they hardly sail.

 

1 hour ago, notamermaid said:

how has the Danube in Bavaria reacted to the nice bit of rain in the last 18 hours? To be honest, I expected a little more, but I think I am impatient.

 

Sorry, we hardly had any rain here in Munich so far. Some drops but not more than 5 min. The soil was dry within seconds.

 

@Seattle1964 although I´m not an engineer I am familiar with the Bernoulli principle. That´s how the Oasis and Allure of the Seas made it from their building shipyard in Turku to the whole wide world passing the Stoerebelt bridge. Technically both ships were too high to pass this bridge (even with retracted stacks it was a close call). They had to go almost full speed to pass the bridge (which was closed for traffic during the passing) and use the Bernoulli effect to pass under the bridge. But I don´t think the Bernoulli principle has much effect on river cruise ships are they are usually cruising pretty slow. Sure there are changes in the draft depending on how much "load" (passengers, crew, goods and more) the ship has. And BTW even the hight of a river cruise ship is limited - basically due to the low bridges along the Main river and the Canal. Everything on the sun deck has to be flattened down for passing the bridges. Pilot houses are retractable. But all I wanted to point out is that the Viking longships have one of the deepest draft (if not the deepest) on the Rhine/Main/Danube system. Other 135 m ships don´t have such a deep draft. And all of them have a maximum width of 11.40 m due to the size of the lock chambers. And as I said above obviously while constructing those ships nobody did seek the advice of experts. Viking ships are the first ones to get stuck with low waters.

 

steamboats

[gnome12]

32 minutes ago, steamboats said:

Viking ships are the first ones to get stuck with low waters.

But they are the master of the ship swap. (Not necessarily something to be proud of.)

[notamermaid]

18 minutes ago, steamboats said:

Sorry, we hardly had any rain here in Munich so far. Some drops but not more than 5 min. The soil was dry within seconds.

A bit surprising, but the radar did indicate that the Isar would not see as much rain as the Lech. It is hot again here, but the rain of about two hours (mostly drizzle) brought nice relief for nature albeit short and has made breakfast just a tiny bit more pleasant for me, it had actually cooled down over night enough to be able to air the flat a little. Geography lesson for folks further away: the Isar river drains into the Danube near Deggendorf, this means the water does not help the river level at Pfelling, but helps at Vilshofen upstream from Passau already.

 

28 minutes ago, steamboats said:

On the Mississippi river they thought they could simply copy and paste the longships of the Rhine/Main/Danube rivers.

Interesting. From the little I have heard and read I have assumed that things on the Mississippi - let us say - went quite wrong for Viking. To be fair on them, they tried hard on the Elbe. While the two Elbe ships are "baby longships" they are nevertheless of a different design as regards using outfitting material, by that I mean anything beyond the pure steel, and a propelling jet system. It means according to Viking that the ships are lighter and better equipped for the Elbe. They are a little better than the previous ships they used, the Clara Schumann and the Theodor Fontane. Unfortunately, the Elbe river did what it is good at: being unreliable. CroisiEurope must have looked at the river and decided to use the tried and tested method of the paddle wheeler, a tradition on the Elbe for 150 years plus. But, a big but, even CroisiEurope have found sailing in Summer to be too unreliable in the stretch around Dresden, so they have skipped doing that. Cruelly, economically speaking, this year it turns out that the Elbe is easier to sail than the Danube in Bavaria.

 

I much admire CroisiEurope for being steadfast with their policy of sticking with the 110m ships and not "upgrading" to 135m (they have several ones that are smaller than 110m). This may limit them as per choices in outfitting but does not limit them sailing in low water (hardly, anyway).

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

7 hours ago, steamboats said:

As well as the A-Rosa Sena which can only go downriver on the Rhine river because of her width.

I have been wondering why the Sena stays downstream from Cologne. Cologne is her home port and due to her width she cannot navigate any locks on the Rhine, but the width itself does not prevent sailing up to Koblenz for example. Double-width container barges sail on the river. Up to Iffezheim it cannot be the limit of the locks so I have been thinking that she has no permit to sail in the Rhine Gorge perhaps. I would be happy to find out about this. Perhaps some time in the future I will ask Arosa about it.

 

4 hours ago, Canal archive said:

Although what I cannot understand is why these maritime architects haven’t realised that shallow draught is the way to go! On the European river system.

The interesting thing is that most ships used to have a shallower draft as they were not that long. In the 1990's hardly any ships were bigger than 110m. Over the years more and more ships got standardized at 110m and gradually apart from the odd 125m, etc. sizes already sailing (which will have a similar draft to the large ships), 135m river cruise ships appeared. Now the better half of the fleet is 135m in size. Basically more ships that can get stuck and more (mostly) Americans on those ships noticing the problem and more interest on CC and well, this leading to me starting a thread around that issue a few years ago. Now a firmly established annual renewal... We will be talking about this issue till the dredgers have left the Bavarian Danube and the concrete mixers have left the building sites along the embankments in several years from now.

 

The low water issues have been mentioned more and more in German news also due to the growing interest in river cruising over the past ten years or so, but with different logistics, other cancellation policies, it has not become such a great issue as it is for those travelling a great distance to actually come to Germany and Europe. After all, if I had booked a river cruise on the Danube and the ship was not sailing, I would not find it that much of a problem. For me Passau is only roughly seven hours away by train. Just notify me before I hope on the train.

 

notamermaid

 

 

[Seattle1964]

2 hours ago, steamboats said:

And BTW even the hight of a river cruise ship is limited

Yes, sir.  I was probably unclear on that being the "air draught" and it's not just limited by physical obstructions but by the overall dimensions of the ship. (stability, buoyancy, et al)

Not many people use that term, but the draught line defines two different dimensions... on above and one below.  🙂

[Seattle1964]

2 hours ago, steamboats said:

But all I wanted to point out is that the Viking longships have one of the deepest draft (if not the deepest) on the Rhine/Main/Danube system. Other 135 m ships don´t have such a deep draft.

100%.  The Vantage River Splendor is a 135m ship with a draught of about 146cm, for example, so will do what the Viking line cannot.  Still, no one is going to push the limit and risk damaging a keel, engine, or hull and those margin decisions seem to be all over the board, right now.

[Seattle1964]

6 hours ago, Canal archive said:

Although what I cannot understand is why these maritime architects haven’t realised that shallow draught is the way to go! On the European river system. 

I'm not so sure the ship architects/builders are the ones to blame here C.A..  (see my other post about Dunning-Kruger)

Ostensibly, one would think that changing the length of a river ship is trivial as they aren't really subjected to lateral forces beyond the wake of other ships.  Think of it as a pool noodle... every section of that noodle, no matter how long, will displace the same ratio of water to its length.  Makes sense... as a noodle twice as long weighs twice as much so it must displace twice as much water.  Making the noodle longer doesn't make it sit lower in the water, though... the draught is constant.  So why is it different with a ship?  It's different because you didn't just change the length of the vessel, you also changed the center of mass and the ship structure now needs to be able to support the extended length and correct for what is known as the "modulus of elasticity."  To keep it simple, think of a steel I-beam.  If you double the width of the vertical flange (the "web") the load capacity is essentially doubled.  But if you increase the height of the web, out popular square-law raises its head again and the increase in load capacity is exponential.  You would only need to increase the height by 41% for it to be twice as strong!  Cool stuff.  Picture that... you can have either 200% the steel (thickness) or 141% the steel (height) for the same effect.  Yes, I am ignoring torsion, etc, but jut trying to make a point as to why you can't just make a ship longer and keep it shallow.

So, what's the easiest way, and the most weight efficient way, to increase the strength of a longer ship?  Increase its overall hull height, which necessarily increases the draught since you can't go up any higher (clearances, as @Steamboat put a fine point on it) and stability.

Check out videos on the MS Arvin if you want to see what happens when the forces are too great for the structure in a long ship.  🙂  The number of things to consider in design are mind-numbing... but rest assured it's not the engineers/architects, as @Steamboat first brought up.

[steamboats]

1 hour ago, Seattle1964 said:

Yes, sir. 

 

It´s, yes, mam 😉

 

3 hours ago, notamermaid said:

From the little I have heard and read I have assumed that things on the Mississippi - let us say - went quite wrong for Viking.

 

They just thought that laws are not valid for them and that the river has to act as they want it... 

 

steamboats

[Canal archive]

Maybe relying to much on the Norse Gods!

[cabrunacci]

We are embarking the Scenic Jasper in Amsterdam on 7/25 to travel down the Rhine and Danube to Budapest.  Anyone have any info on how the drought of Scenic’s “space ships” compare to Vikings long ship’s and Scenic’s ability to deal with low waters?

[Seattle1964]

21 minutes ago, steamboats said:

It´s, yes, mam 😉

Well, that's twice I've made that mistake.  But, to be fair, it's a coin toss when there are no gender indicators and if I get it wrong then you understand why I don't ever gamble money. LOL

 

And, way off topic:

By the way, ma'am, in all my business correspondence the gender-neutral is "Dear Sirs"  🙂   I can't imagine I will ever use "Xer", as is often suggested.  Unfortunately, perhaps, much of our language is rooted in a misogynistic time but it's just colloquial, now, and without intention.  English, like Spanish, is a Latin derivative and inanimate objects have gender, which is why every ship is a "she" even if it has a typically male name.  That's not to say that "ship" has a Latin root... it's Germanic.

(Latin "naves" or "navis" is gendered female.)

I often praise an unknown pet with "good boy!" and it's without knowing whether it is male or not.  🤪

 

Thank you for correcting me!  

[Seattle1964]

16 minutes ago, cabrunacci said:

Anyone have any info on how the drought of Scenic’s “space ships” compare to Vikings long ship’s

I don't know the designed draught of that vessel, but it's reported draught is currently 170cm... which is at least 20cm less than Viking... or about 8 inches.  

[cabrunacci]

36 minutes ago, Seattle1964 said:

I don't know the designed draught of that vessel, but it's reported draught is currently 170cm... which is at least 20cm less than Viking... or about 8 inches.  

Thanks!

[Canal archive]

The Scenic fleet ranges from 1m to 1.7 but 1m seems very shallow to me. Mind you all this ship information takes me back to being trained by the then Admiralty as a technical illustrator the then ships drawing boards were way long and marine architects are really picky.

[notamermaid]

2 hours ago, cabrunacci said:

We are embarking the Scenic Jasper in Amsterdam on 7/25 to travel down the Rhine and Danube to Budapest.  Anyone have any info on how the drought of Scenic’s “space ships” compare to Vikings long ship’s and Scenic’s ability to deal with low waters?

Definitely better than Viking, but I know they have done ship swaps on the Danube in past years in low water, as reported by cruisers. The river is currently so low in Bavaria that I imagine Scenic to struggle as much as Viking. But details we would need to get up to date from passengers.

 

So where are we with the river levels? Regensburg going up, just daily fluctuation or reaction to rain? Not sure yet. Pfelling still very low at 225cm.

 

notamermaid