On Monday 29th October 2018 Stadt Luzern’s outgoing Captain Kuno Stein and her new master Roger Maurer, who will take command on completion of her rebuild, spent the day clearing the wheelhouse, office and service rooms of equipment and files. These were all put into safe storage before the ship was passed over to Shiptec, the independent company at the Luzern shipyard, which will undertake the work of her rebuild which was estimated to cost 12.5 million Swiss francs and take about two years to complete.
Stadt Luzern emerged from the drydock in August 2020 and is scheduled to return to service in 2021.
Ships are built with a design life of about twenty five or so years. Some may last a bit longer. Others may be scrapped sooner but in broad brush strokes whatever you do to build or rebuild a ship you have to do it all over again twenty five/thirty years later and then again twenty five/thirty years after that and so on. Stadt Luzern was built in 1927 and had major rebuilds in 1946, 1961, 1985/86 and again 2018/2021. So fingers crossed she won’t need another one now until 2046.
Kingswear Castle returned to service in 2023 after the first part of a major rebuild which is designed to set her up for the next 25 years running on the River Dart. The Paddle Steamer Kingswear Castle Trust is now fund raising for the second phase of the rebuild. You can read more about the rebuilds and how you can help if you can here.
John Megoran
This article was first published on 29th October 2020.
