Safe navigation on the Neckar: Flounder and Frog in action!

Safe navigation on the Neckar: Flounder and Frog in action!

As part of the shipping activities on the Neckar, the “Flounder”, a ship from the Stuttgart Riverhouse fleet, deserves special mention. It is not only used for parties, but also serves as a diving platform for the Waterways and Shipping Authority. With a length of 7.80 meters and a drive consisting of two engines with 15 kilowatts each, the “Flounder” was put into service in 2011. To support their functionality, the ship “Frosch” is used, which was built in 1968 and has a length of 20.60 meters. The “Frosch” has an engine output of 68 kilowatts and complements the administration’s diving equipment.

The central task of the Waterways and Shipping Office is carried out by the tracking ship “Neckar”. This has been in use since 1963 and is 29.76 meters long. With a machine output of 220 kilowatts, it ensures monitoring of the Neckar fairway. These regular measurements are essential to ensure the safety and efficiency of the waterway for shipping. It is essential that there is always sufficient water under the keel of ships to allow unimpeded traffic.

Route and shipping

The importance of the Neckar as a waterway should not be underestimated. Inland waterway vessels are considered the preferred means of transport in bulk freight transport because they are spacious, offer a favorable ratio of payload to dead load and require fewer personnel and energy. In Germany, these ships can reach many large cities and heavy industrial facilities. In order to ensure these conditions, the Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration maintains a channel depth of 2.80 m under normal traffic jams.

The channel runs in the middle of the river and is at least 30 m wide in lock channels and at least 36 m wide in free rivers. However, the edge of the fairway is not continuously marked, which means that obstacles are marked depending on local conditions. Skippers must ensure that buoys are approximately 5m out of the shipping channel and stopping hard can result in a grounding. Additional sinking depth must be taken into account depending on speed and suction from other vessels.

The decision about the unloading depth lies with the skipper, who must take into account the characteristics of his ship, his local knowledge and the drainage conditions. Particularly for ships with a width of 11 m or more, restrictions due to corner bracing in the lock chambers must be taken into account. For vehicles that transport dangerous goods and are not double-hulled ships, they must also maintain a safety distance of at least 20 cm from the depth of the shipping channel.

It should be emphasized that there is another ship in the Neckar called “Neckar” - a Rhein-class tender that was once part of the German Federal Navy. This ship was commissioned in 1963, decommissioned in 1989 and finally scrapped in 1993. It is important that there is no connection between this warship and the Waterways and Shipping Administration's tracking ship.