Rhine water levels 2023 and similar topics

[Host Jazzbeau]

4 hours ago, notamermaid said:

The roofer has already had the house I am living in on his to-do list.

Is it on his 'paying for future luxury cruises' list?  😉

[Canal archive]

Hope not what Notamermaid needs it for is a future superdooper river cruise on an unknown river, what a super learning curve.

[notamermaid]

11 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

Is it on his 'paying for future luxury cruises' list?  😉

Perhaps that is why he has not been yet. The house is on the wrong list! You never know these days, all smartphone and laptop and that - not the order book folder but his holiday list. 😁

 

Well, I am in the middle of my holiday plans but I do not know yet if it will be on a major river. France? England? Germany?

 

It is nice to see tourists enjoying themselves on my river. I admit to getting a tad envious occasionally. I am too busy to have a proper excursion boat trip, but perhaps later in the year I will find some time to hop on a boat and wave to the large ships...

 

I did have a short ferry crossing on my river combined with a trip out - it was the large car ferry from Linz to Remagen-Kripp, which sailed so fast I could hardly take proper photos. Not speed as in speed boat but the route is more or less straight so the crossing only takes about four minutes (without loading and unloading).

 

notamermaid

 

 

[Host Jazzbeau]

7 hours ago, notamermaid said:

Well, I am in the middle of my holiday plans but I do not know yet if it will be on a major river. France? England? Germany?

This recent Cruise Critic article might whet your appetite:

https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles/river-thames-cruises-what-to-expect-on-londons-famous-waterway

[notamermaid]

The car ferry in Linz on the Rhine will be celebrating a birthday soon. A busy boat every time I am there. Perhaps it is not widely known among you folks that there are few bridges over the Rhine in the Middle Rhine valley, both the Upper and the Lower part of the valley.

 

I went to the area in spring and I will tell you a bit about that in another post. Linz on the Rhine is far smaller than its Austrian namesake and in my opinion a handsome little place to while away an afternoon.

 

Kaub gauge: 146cm.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

Another hot day in the valley. Not much rain forecast. River levels to go down gradually till the end of the month. 125cm very likely, lower figures likely, 100cm possible but unlikely. Not much change going into July. We will find out a bit more nearer the end of this coming week.

 

Kaub gauge now at 149cm.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

Let us end the week with a bit of nostalgia. What did heads of state used to be offered when coming to West Germany? Yes, sailing on the Rhine. Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh visited the Rhineland in 1965 and sailed on the ship Loreley. The journey from Koblenz to Kaub was captured on reel, this one is without commentary, from the archives of SWR: https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/swr-retro-abendschau/schiffsreise-der-koenigin-und-ankunft-in-kaub/swr/Y3JpZDovL3N3ci5kZS9hZXgvbzExNjEwMjQ

 

The skyline of Boppard is still the same, the castles are still there, ships still sail as they always do and trains still run. Comforting somewhat.

 

The Royals have left us and so has the grand Loreley ship, sadly. She was the excursion boat with the highest number of passengers any excursion boat in inland waterways in Europe has ever been allowed to carry by the authorities - 3430. In the winter of 2002/2003 she sank in a harbour in the Netherlands awaiting major repairs and a new lease of life that never came. Noone had wanted to buy the ship and after she had been raised she was gutted and scrapped. (info from Wikipedia)

 

A sad story but there are a few old ships left, just not sailing for the most part. The MS Goethe being the major exception. Another excursion boat had a similar accident in March of this year, but was saved from going straight to the scrapyard. That is a story for another day and connected with the ferry and trip to Linz I mentioned in a previous post.

 

notamermaid

 

[Canal archive]

They say ships have not a soul but something akin.

[CastleCritic]

33 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

Let us end the week with a bit of nostalgia. What did heads of state used to be offered when coming to West Germany? Yes, sailing on the Rhine. Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh visited the Rhineland in 1965 and sailed on the ship Loreley. The journey from Koblenz to Kaub was captured on reel, this one is without commentary, from the archives of SWR: https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/swr-retro-abendschau/schiffsreise-der-koenigin-und-ankunft-in-kaub/swr/Y3JpZDovL3N3ci5kZS9hZXgvbzExNjEwMjQ

 

The skyline of Boppard is still the same, the castles are still there, ships still sail as they always do and trains still run. Comforting somewhat.

 

The Royals have left us and so has the grand Loreley ship, sadly. She was the excursion boat with the highest number of passengers any excursion boat in inland waterways in Europe has ever been allowed to carry by the authorities - 3430. In the winter of 2002/2003 she sank in a harbour in the Netherlands awaiting major repairs and a new lease of life that never came. Noone had wanted to buy the ship and after she had been raised she was gutted and scrapped. (info from Wikipedia)

 

A sad story but there are a few old ships left, just not sailing for the most part. The MS Goethe being the major exception. Another excursion boat had a similar accident in March of this year, but was saved from going straight to the scrapyard. That is a story for another day and connected with the ferry and trip to Linz I mentioned in a previous post.

 

notamermaid

 

Funny you bring that up, in one of the recent video blog entries from the viking ship that is doing the Danube now, they mention running across a barge that was over 100 years old.  I believe it was the Kilian (they kept saying Gilian, but she's marked as Kilian) that appears that appears in some of the videos about the same time.

[notamermaid]

54 minutes ago, CastleCritic said:

they mention running across a barge that was over 100 years old.

Indeed. The folk from Binnenschifferforum have so many photos it was easy to identify the Kilian. She was built in 1914 in Hardinxveld in the Netherlands and altered in 1965. She is sailing upstream and is in or around Passau.

 

notamermaid

 

[SGinNE]

Question: Why is Kaub the gauge that is usually the "measuring stick", when Worms always seems to be a lower number? From the chart, where everything is currently green on the Rhine, I get why the middle Rhine is monitored, since it seems to be the shallowest part. Currently, Kaub is 151cm, while Worms is 133cm. 

[RDVIK2016]

31 minutes ago, SGinNE said:

Question: Why is Kaub the gauge that is usually the "measuring stick", when Worms always seems to be a lower number? From the chart, where everything is currently green on the Rhine, I get why the middle Rhine is monitored, since it seems to be the shallowest part. Currently, Kaub is 151cm, while Worms is 133cm. 

The numbers that you cited are called the Pegel readings. Pegel can be translated as "water level measurement", but it is NOT a direct measurement of the depth of the river in the navigation channel. The Pegel is just one of the numbers the ship captains need to know to determine the depth where he navigates. The captains need to know the so called Gleichwertigerwasserstand (GlW)/"equivalent water level" and the depth of the river below that level to the actual bottom of the river which is called the TuGlW or Tiefe unter dem Gleichwertigerwasserstand . You can subtract the Gleichwertigerwasserstand (different for each location) from the Pegel reading and add it to the TuGlW (which also can vary) to get the actual water depth in the navigation channel. The GlW at Worms is 9cm less than at Kaub, but the TuGlW is 20cm greater. If I figured it correctly the actual depth in the channel at Kaub when the Kaub Pegel is 151cm is 264cm and at Worms a Pegel reading of 133cm cm indicates a channel that is actually a little bit deeper at 273cm.  Someone might want to check my calculations. 

[SGinNE]

Ah, okay. That's some great info. Thanks for clarifying this for me! 😊

[notamermaid]

3 hours ago, RDVIK2016 said:

Someone might want to check my calculations. 

Not going to myself now, the basics are correct. Every gauge is different and relates differently to the depth of the navigation channel.

 

Thank you. Great help.

 

As a side note: the Rhine Gorge is the shallowest stretch as regards the navigation channel but has quite some depth in a few spots off the main channel, i,e. a few surprising ravines.

 

For those new to the subject. The Rhine has large tributaries that supply a high volume of water constantly but is free flowing all the way from Iffezheim to the mouth at Rotterdam so has no direct control for much of the distance that river cruise ships sail - basically, complete reliance on nature for hundreds of kilometres. Apart from dredging and corrections of flow with the help of groynes.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

The ferry at Linz - and the excursion boat - part 1

 

On Good Friday this year I went on a trip out. The original plan was to sail on an excursion boat to celebrate the 10th anniversary of my river cruise. I had little time that week and work weekends. Unfortunately, the timing then just wasn't right so early in the year and I could not find a boat ride. What to do? I really wanted to be on the river. Solution: a ferry! Mundane and a bit boring normally, I made this a special occasion. Just in my mind, with an added piece of splendid cake if I could get hold of one. Here is what I did.

 

Linz in the North of my state has a car ferry and is a relatively pretty and small old town. We parked outside the town walls and at the railway line, the latter almost hides the town from view, it is an elevated one. Linz is built on a hill, or at least on an elevation which means that the streets in the old town have an incline. People wisely put the walls and the buildings within them a bit of a distance from the embankment. The river does flood there almost annually and can block the road in bad years. That also means the town has an extensive promenade, landing stages for boats and space for a ferry right opposite the old town gate.

 

This is the fountain at the town hall:

 

Linz website says that it signifies democracy. On the top is the people, i.e. the sovereign. Sitting are the town council members whose limbs can be moved. There is a plaque in the ground:

 

They are subjected to the ups and downs of the favours of the people. They have their meetings in this nice old edifice, the town hall from the 16th century:

 

It was a grey day but it was interesting to wander the streets and see eight centuries reflected in the town's architecture. The former church of the Capuchin Order, now a town meeting place (for events, etc.), with rather modern extension:

 

Late Medieval/Renaissance and Baroque next to each other:

 

An architectural highlight for me, the house built for a Jewish merchant by the famous regional architects Mattar and Scheler (entrance):

 

Time to look for cake and head to the ferry.

 

To be continued...

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

There are some nice old ships still around, in a previous post I was referring to old river cruise ships and excursion boats, not old barges, this may have not been clear enough. We have many smaller old barges still on the river but passenger ships we have lost more than a few to war, economic viability, wear and tear, etc. One such nifty little thing, i.e. unusual engineering is the Rheinpfeil. As the name Pfeil suggests - arrow - it was a fast boat. And it still exists. But that is for another time.

 

Kaub gauge at 128cm. The forecast has been adjusted in a down direction, lower figures than stated two days ago now bring the range closer to 110cm. It would appear that there has been less rain in the Upper Rhine valley than predicted.

 

Now, back to Linz.

 

notamermaid

 

[SGinNE]

On 6/27/2023 at 5:34 PM, notamermaid said:

Late Medieval/Renaissance and Baroque next to each other:

 

 

 

 

 

This is outstanding!! Thanks for sharing this 🙂 

[notamermaid]

I just throw in a quick thought and explanation about Linz. Linz is a touristy town seeing that it is old and attractive - two Medieval town wall towers remain. I will get back to the architecture later a bit. It is for non-Europeans off the beaten track but not for Germans or Dutch river cruisers. I would call it a "second tier" port. Rüdesheim as an example I would call a "first tier" port. So I would not include it on a Basel to Amsterdam cruise if I were an operator/planner, but as a "discover the Rhine off the beaten track" it has merits for North-Americans. And if I may be so malicious: no Viking red umbrellas or lollipop tour guides you bump into in this place. I intend to add Linz to my compilation of places beyond the standard ports. Have not got round to completing the research for it.

 

Kaub gauge at 120cm. Over on the Danube things are looking worse. It is overcast here and there is a bit of rain in the air in parts all over Germany. Not enough yet for giving relief to nature.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

The ferry at Linz - and the excursion boat - part 2

 

I came across the architects Mattar and Scheler some years ago as they built the museum at Neuwied. I like their style, they built mostly in Linz and the area. They were active from 1908 for several decades and are responsible for the very representative headquarters of the Basalt AG in Linz, it is this building: https://www.linz.de/startseite/tourismus-freizeit/linz-erleben/kunst-kultur/mattar-scheler

 

There are several eateries in Linz that look inviting, we decided on the café right at the town wall, Konditorei Café Leber. It had a nice selection and we bought a few things to take away. The side entrance of the café had a nostalgic shop window:

 

The mugs called "Sammeltassen" take centre stage in this display of life in years past. Sammeltassen were popular presents and collector's items until the 1950's. They are special editions of shape and pattern, always a cup with saucer and cake plate.

 

Did I mention Linz also has a castle? I know you are not surprised. What would such an old town be without it. Unfortunately, the restaurant closed down some time ago. But the outside is nice, too. On one wall, I think it is where the old town wall was, you can read the markings of floodings, next to Jesus on the Cross:

 

I think the steel beam to the right is about upper thigh height, I think this helps with putting the marking into context.

 

I mentioned the town walls and the towers. This is the entrance, low with a menacing portcullis:

 

These days, the railway line and the main road are the bigger obstacles for free passage into the town or that day in our case the Rhine. But the town planners have invested some money and built a subway:

 

See the typical yellow and black vertical line that represents the gauge of the river's level. We of course took the wide car underpass, drove straight onto the ferry which happened to be waiting and set off shortly after. I had little time to get my camera ready! There are safety issues of course but you are allowed to leave the car while sailing. The technical stuff, what the ferry is allowed to carry:

 

Look what was approaching the embankment just as we were about to start sailing:

 

This is the catamaran excursion boat by Bonner Personen Schiffahrt. This looks good, I am unashamed to do some marketing: https://www.bonnschiff.de/en/unsere-flotte/filia-rheni

 

By the time we were truly underway, she had just docked, part of Linz "skyline":

 

Yes, the hills are close. The other side is a bit wider and flatter terrain:

 

But before we get to the left embankment let us have a look at the river. Upstream:

 

Downstream:

 

Approaching Kripp, then quickly into the car, we do not want to hold anyone up!

 

This is a busy crossing place and like so many others a very old one. While the ferry Linz-Remagen itself is very modern, the company itself is old. 100 years, celebrating on 1 July with a big do!

https://rheinfaehre-linz-remagen.de/

 

After a last glance at Linz we headed upstream on this side of the river. Next stop: Brohl harbour.

 

To be continued...

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

[Canal archive]

Super Notamermaid especially interesting for DH it’s his Birthday on 1st July but he’s not quite up with them yet. 😝

[notamermaid]

Kaub gauge at 117cm. Lowest figure suggested for tomorrow is 112cm. But the current level is running above the forecast so the figures may stay a little higher. Sunday should show a minimal rise. We really need that to get us comfortably through the first half of July. Longer forecast - helped by the rain and the higher figures Sunday and Monday - looks okay but a bit on the low side, meaning 100cm is a scenario that is possible if it stays dry from next week and at this point in time we cannot rule out going as low as 90cm by the middle of the month. Which would still be kind of bearable. But we will look at this again in a few days time.

 

Talking of older ships, I spotted a barge the other day, it looked old to me, quite small, almost dainty compared to the large full container ships sailing these days. Binnenschifferforum says that the "MS Deimos" (not her first name) was built in 1959, is 67.5m long and 7.25m wide. Built in Belgium she is now sailing under Dutch flag. She is not very old, but compared to river cruise ships, she is certainly not a youngster. I do not know which the oldest river cruise ship is on the Rhine, that would be quite a task to find that out, seeing that the ships can change rivers. But we can comfortably say that most river cruise ships sailing this days were built long after the Deimos first touched water in Gent. I guess the oldest ship may be a converted barge and probably not much bigger than the Deimos.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

Okay, I admit, I just could not let this topic sit idly over the weekend... I have checked. Not sure but a very strong contender for the oldest river cruise ship sailing on the Rhine is the Lady Anne. She was built in 1903 as a barge and converted. Not sure if she is still sailing itineraries but she is certainly still sailing in the Dutch waters.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

Kaub did go briefly to 112cm. Bands of rain clouds are sweeping over the valley. An overcast day, a bit blustery in parts. That should give us a few centimetres on the gauge at Kaub which is now at 113cm.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

On 6/29/2023 at 11:24 PM, Canal archive said:

Super Notamermaid especially interesting for DH it’s his Birthday on 1st July but he’s not quite up with them yet. 😝

I am late to the party but I hope your DH has had a super birthday and many happy returns of the day. Here is to him doing the speed and as graceful manoeuvres as that ferry for years to come. 🍾

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

So, Kaub gauge has risen to 125cm. Good. But we still need to anticipate a drop to 90cm later in July. But first a look back at June.

 

In other news: an excursion boat has hit an embankment wall in Duisburg this week - seven people injured. A captain of a barge has hit a tanker - drink driving. The former ferry at Königswinter called "Alte Liebe" has become a restaurant. Thousands of people celebrated "Rhine in Flames" last night in Bingen and Rüdesheim. Largest of the fireworks events coming up at Koblenz on 12 August.

 

notamermaid