Rhine water levels 2023 and similar topics

[notamermaid]

On 11/1/2023 at 12:05 PM, notamermaid said:

The Rhine ship spotters will in the next few days be able to see a hull transport, called NB 211, supposedly a ship ultimately destined for the Douro.

The hull will be the Porto Mirante. It is being towed by the barge "Vision" and has passed Xanten. It was spotted at Koblenz (see post #5): https://www.binnenschifferforum.de/showthread.php?116011-KFGS-Kasko

 

notamermaid

 

[Canal archive]

Interesting it’s not built in Portugal, I wonder where it will be fitted out? Could be interest following its route to the Douro.

[notamermaid]

In post #4 of my link it says Hardinxveld, which is the seat of the shipyard that usually does the outfitting. The shipyard where the hull was built is a sister company. I guess the Porto Mirante will be taken on board a carrier of sorts via Rotterdam to Portugal.

 

The hull of the Amadeus Nova is now on the Main river.

 

It has been a rainy weekend. The river's levels are very good. November weather but when the sun comes out the shapes and colours of the trees still look good. The autumn storms have not been too bad so far around here, so the Middle Rhine valley and the Moselle valley still have foliage one can enjoy.

 

notamermaid

 

[Canal archive]

It’s heartening that companies are still investing in the river cruise business they’ve had a hard time overall the last couple of years and then the low water levels this year at least some have still got the gumption to invest fingers crossed it proves profitable for them and not to over the top for us users.

[notamermaid]

With (former) Jewish life in focus in Germany this week (as is the case every year in November) I would like to tell you a little about a historical "curiosity" that is a bit off the beaten track. A mikveh underneath a town hall. In the old town hall building in Andernach is a meeting hall and underneath that is a ritual bath. The water level rises and falls with the Rhine river level, i.e. the ground water reacts: https://www.andernach-tourismus.de/en/andernach/places-of-interest/old-townhall

No English page: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikwe_(Andernach)

The town hall was built on the former synagogue site in the Middle Ages (!) and Jewish life did not return to Andernach for over than 300 years.

 

It is a rare example of a Medieval mikveh that is still standing today. I was down there many years ago. Not sure when it is open to the public these days, standard opening is on "Tag des offenen Denkmals" in September. If you are interested in the topic generally, Speyer and Worms are cities to explore and a museum in Frankfurt on the Main is a good place to learn more at.

 

Brief note on water levels: within a perfect range, not low, not high.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

On the eve of the feast day of Saint Martin let us have a look at a village called Sankt Martin. It is in the region Palatinate and in there part of the Südliche Weinstraße, the Southern Wine Road. Sankt Martin looks a pleasant village, wine all around with a centre that has gained architecturally protected status. Here are a few photos: https://www.suedlicheweinstrasse.de/bilderbuchorte/infosystem/St-Martin_St-Martin/infosystem.html

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankt_Martin_(Pfalz)#/media/Datei:St._Martin_(Pfalz),_Maikammerer_Str.JPG

 

This is the area you can access from Speyer, it is half an hour's drive to the West. Now, I admit there is too much to see in Speyer to warrant a drive out into the countryside but knowing the motorways in the area and a couple of towns I can tell you that it is worth taking the time to experience this wine land if you have an afternoon to spare.

 

By the way, if you go on the excursion to Doktorenhof with Amawaterways you are close to Sankt Martin, at a village called Venningen: https://www.doktorenhof.de/en

 

notamermaid

 

 

[RDVIK2016]

6 hours ago, notamermaid said:

On the eve of the feast day of Saint Martin let us have a look at a village called Sankt Martin. It is in the region Palatinate and in there part of the Südliche Weinstraße, the Southern Wine Road. Sankt Martin looks a pleasant village, wine all around with a centre that has gained architecturally protected status. Here are a few photos: https://www.suedlicheweinstrasse.de/bilderbuchorte/infosystem/St-Martin_St-Martin/infosystem.html

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankt_Martin_(Pfalz)#/media/Datei:St._Martin_(Pfalz),_Maikammerer_Str.JPG

 

This is the area you can access from Speyer, it is half an hour's drive to the West. Now, I admit there is too much to see in Speyer to warrant a drive out into the countryside but knowing the motorways in the area and a couple of towns I can tell you that it is worth taking the time to experience this wine land if you have an afternoon to spare.

 

By the way, if you go on the excursion to Doktorenhof with Amawaterways you are close to Sankt Martin, at a village called Venningen: https://www.doktorenhof.de/en

 

notamermaid

 

 

St Martin's day has the richest list of old farmers' sayings predicting how hard the winter will be based on the weather that. So be observant of the weather on Martini, 11/11, and we'll see if the Baurenregeln hold up this year.  

[notamermaid]

On 11/11/2023 at 4:58 AM, RDVIK2016 said:

So be observant of the weather on Martini

I see you used the Latin possessive... Rules really abound, had never looked at that closely. So the weather was indecisive which means there was no snow that means the winter will not be severe. Clouds and a bit of sunshine appears to mean we will get a winter of ups and downs.

 

At the moment I can say that we appear to have left low water realm on the Rhine for this year.

 

I tried to spot the hull of the Amadeus Nova, but the Zasavica III dropped it off at Ginsheim-Gustavsburg on the Main and I have not been able to follow up on the next carrier, i.e. the barge that is supposed to pull it alongside.

 

I did spot something else though on camera: the "busy bee" of Viking that is the Viking Orvar pulling something along in the Rhine Gorge. Will get back to that.

 

notamermaid

 

[RDVIK2016]

14 hours ago, notamermaid said:

I see you used the Latin possessive... Rules really abound, had never looked at that closely. So the weather was indecisive which means there was no snow that means the winter will not be severe. Clouds and a bit of sunshine appears to mean we will get a winter of ups and downs.

 

At the moment I can say that we appear to have left low water realm on the Rhine for this year.

 

I tried to spot the hull of the Amadeus Nova, but the Zasavica III dropped it off at Ginsheim-Gustavsburg on the Main and I have not been able to follow up on the next carrier, i.e. the barge that is supposed to pull it alongside.

 

I did spot something else though on camera: the "busy bee" of Viking that is the Viking Orvar pulling something along in the Rhine Gorge. Will get back to that.

 

notamermaid

 

 

I have not had a classical education so I can't say that I was intentionally using the Latin possessive. Because of the influence of the Roman Catholic church, that is what St. Martin's Day is often referenced in "Old Bavaria" and Austria. It's often not Martinstag there, but Martinitag shortened to Martini. There are many small towns with yearly "Martiniritt" mounted processions. Same for Leonhardi on Nov. 6 with its Leohardiritte.  St Stephan's Day also becomes Stefani. There are probably others, but those are the only three I am most familiar with because they are very commonly used.  

(By "Old Bavaria" I mean Altbayern: Oberbayern, Niederbayern, Oberpfalz)

 

RDVIK

[notamermaid]

Aahh, so a little explanation. It simply is derived from Church Latin where the feast days are referred to as "the feast of", for example Festum Sancti Martini. Mostly in the Catholic regions, such as Bavaria, it has stuck and is used to this day. In the Rhineland we hardly say it.

 

Today we will see heavy rain and there are flood warnings for areas in the South of Baden-Würrtemberg. This water will partly go to the Rhine and partly to the Danube. If the forecast is right we will see flooding in the Upper Rhine valley and problems for river traffic. I had the suspicion this may happen before the month is out but it has nevertheless come suddenly I find. To give you an idea of what I mean: Maxau gauge (near Karlsruhe) is at 581cm, which is above the mean. By tomorrow it should reach 650cm which puts the river section on flood alert. Over 700cm is very much possible in the 12 hours following that.

 

notamermaid

 

 

[notamermaid]

I am a bit behind with the news so missed this one yesterday, an accident. A barge hit one of the gates of Iffezheim lock on Saturday. The damage is immense and as such a gate is a special construction made to order it will cost more than a million euros and take several months to replace. The lock is unusable. As there is a second chamber river traffic is running smoothly but there may be delays. German news article: https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/baden-wuerttemberg/karlsruhe/iffezheim-staustufe-schiff-rhein-unfall-102.html

 

notamermaid

 

[moonriver54]

Ouch!!!  

[CastleCritic]

hit going with some momentum judging from the pictures of it hanging off the gate.

[Canal archive]

Oops! Looks like the barge was supposed to be entering the lock but certainly not at that speed.

[CastleCritic]

I dont know, looking at the picture they hit the lock on the high water entry side while it was closed so they would NOT have been cleared to enter. unless there was a signal issue. (or they got confused at which lock to enter and were supposed to be going into the other lock.)

Edited November 13, 2023 by CastleCritic

[Canal archive]

See what you mean I didn’t scroll down. To do that amount of damage would take a lot of speed, I wonder what his load was.

[notamermaid]

It really is a weird one, the police report just says the investigation is ongoing. Whatever happened it certainly went spectacularly wrong. It was daylight so no confusion in the dark possible.

 

notamermaid

 

[CastleCritic]

while looking to see if there was any mention of this in the English press I found a quote from a ship hitting a lock in Kiel in 2020 that probably applies

 

"the main cause of the accident was probably that the officer on watch had reached the limits of his competence when carrying out his duties"

[notamermaid]

Good phrase. There is of course the possibility that the engine failed. It is still odd though. Well, we had the strange case of the barge Achim sailing into a lock on the Danube and then breaking in the middle and sinking...

 

I doubt that we will read anything further about Iffezheim seeing that the ship and the ship in the lock at the time of the incident have already continued their journeys. It will be interesting to see if there will be delays - flooding could make things more complicated.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

On Sunday I mentioned the Viking Orvar. While looking for another ship on a tracking website I saw that the tugboat was sailing again, in the Lower Middle Rhine valley. Later I noticed that she had docked in Boppard. Boppard has a multi-angle livestream webcam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY4XYAgqUvE

So I did a bit of spinning backwards on Saturday night. This is what I saved. Here she is coming round the bend towards Boppard:

 

A few minutes later:

 

A close-up/cut-out:

Looks like a landing-stage.

 

There she is approaching Boppard docking:

 

Now you can make out the boat better and see that she is indeed pulling a landing stage:

 

The boat is now in Rüdesheim. I wonder if she still has her cargo? From marinetraffic.com:

 

 

Her destination is given as Worms.

 

notamermaid

 

[Host Jazzbeau]

4 hours ago, CastleCritic said:

while looking to see if there was any mention of this in the English press I found a quote from a ship hitting a lock in Kiel in 2020 that probably applies

 

"the main cause of the accident was probably that the officer on watch had reached the limits of his competence when carrying out his duties"

Was he named Peter?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

[Canal archive]

That is one book of many my DH has in his copious library appertaining to management and he says he doesn’t read fiction.

 

Ohh and reference to the lock incidence in some ways I can understand the powers that be allowing the boats to carry on as it’s not that easy to ‘do a runner’ to big and heavy. Looking at it again was it by chance a combination of boat crash and gate fail as in the gate needing maintenance.

Edited November 14, 2023 by Canal archive

[notamermaid]

I suppose it is not that much different to cars. If it is roadworthy - fit to sail - a ship can carry on. The damage is assessed, the police launch looks at it and files a report - the press gets a release and a number for inquiries - and things run their normal pace again. In this case without the second lock though. The captain is described in the television report as a "Steuerfrau" which is of course the female to "Steuermann". Thankfully no one was hurt in all this but I can well imagine the lady's professional pride was...

 

Locks are operated with signals of course, so green for free passage into the lock, red for stop. Gate fail, signal fail? Human error?

 

Certainly activated are the signals for flooding, that is on the vigilance website Rhine, Neckar, Saar and Moselle are on 15 minute update. If you want the "full drama" (which it is not, just mild flooding) this is what it looks like:

 

You can see that the situation in Koblenz and Cologne is still laid back.

 

Maxau is our marker to watch now, there the level is 637cm, so not too bad yet. The forecast gives us a strong rise still - see the rise at Basel - so while there is a bit of uncertainty in the modelling there is the risk of a river traffic ban which happens at 750cm. We will find out more latest tomorrow lunchtime.

 

On the Moselle by the way we have a wave going through Trier towards Cochem now. But it does not look like there may be a river traffic ban. The level is not that high.

 

notamermaid.

 

 

Edited November 14, 2023 by notamermaid
grammar

[notamermaid]

News from Basel is that the river upstream is closed to traffic which I assume means that excursion boats cannot go upstream from Basel. According to the authorities' website river traffic is halted at Basel and the downstream section to France at a level of 820cm. Basel gauge is now showing 800cm. Basel newspaper confirms the procedure at 820cm.

 

If you are in Basel about to embark or are sailing tonight it would be great to hear how things are going for you.

 

notamermaid

 

 

[notamermaid]

Basel level peaked at 872cm and is now down to 846cm. There is a river traffic ban up to Kembs.

 

Maxau is at 726cm, still below the crucial figure of 750cm.

 

With the lock at Iffezheim doing the locking process more slowly I anticipate a backlog when shipping fully resumes.

 

notamermaid