German fleet tender Hela
Hela during sea trails in 1941
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History | |
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Nazi Germany | |
Name | Hela |
Namesake | Ersatz Hela |
Ordered | 1936 |
Builder | Stülckenwerft |
Laid down | 23 November 1937 |
Launched | 29 December 1938 |
Acquired | 16 October 1940 |
Commissioned | 16 October 1940 |
Decommissioned | 8 May 1945 |
Fate | Transferred to Soviet Union, 25 December 1945 |
History | |
Russia | |
Name |
|
Namesake | Angara |
Acquired | 25 December 1945 |
Commissioned | 13 May 1946 |
Renamed | PKZ-14, January 1996 |
Fate | Scrapped, November 2019 |
General characteristics | |
Type | Tender ship |
Displacement | 2,520 tonnes (2,480 long tons) at full load |
Length | 99.80 m (327 ft 5 in) |
Beam | 12.08 m (39 ft 8 in) |
Draft | 4.05 m (13 ft 3 in) |
Propulsion |
|
Speed | 21 knots (39 km/h) |
Complement | 224-259 crew |
Armament |
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The Hela was a command ship of the Kriegsmarine, sometimes also known as an aviso. She was equipped with everything a fleet or squadron command staff needed, and the superstructures mainly contained work and accommodation rooms for a large staff.
Development and design
Because the previously used fleet tender Hela, the former M135 minesweeper, had become too small for the new tasks and needs of the fleet staff, a planned new building was included in the 1936 state budget under the name of Ersatz Hela.
The ship had a length of 99.8 m over all or 92.5 m in the waterline and was 12.8 m wide, with a side height of 7.45 m and a maximum draft of 4.05 m maximum 2,520 tonnes (standard 2,113 tn.l.). The armament consisted of two 10.5-cm SK L / 45 C32 rapid-loading cannons, a 3.7-cm SK C / 30 and two 2.0-cm Flak C / 30 automatic cannons. A conspicuously large ship crane for watering and recovering the various barges and dinghies as well as for loading the ship with ammunition and supplies was located amidships behind the funnel. The equipment with a catapult and seaplane of the Arado Ar 196 A-1 planned in the original draft was not implemented because it was foreseeable early on that the ship would hardly leave its home waters and thus an airborne aircraft would not be needed for reconnaissance or transport.[1]
The procurement of the initially planned four MAN 9-cylinder four-stroke marine diesel engines of the type W 9 Vu 40/46 with Büchi supercharging, with a total planned 6300 hp, caused considerable difficulties and led to long construction delays. Eventually this plan was abandoned and the ship received two two-stroke six-cylinder diesel engines from MAN instead, which were removed from the not yet completed cargo ship Sofia of the German Levante Line. Their total of 4720 hp gave the Hela a top speed of 20 knots over two shafts with volcano drives and propellers. The bunker supply of 280 t of diesel fuel enabled an action radius of 2000 nautical miles at a cruising speed of 15 knots.[1]
The crew consisted of 224 to 259 men (without admiralty staff). In addition, officers and crew quarters were available for up to 108 other persons who would serve as staff on board.[1]
Construction and career
Service in the Kriegsmarine
She was
On 5 May 1941, Hela brought
On 16 April 1945, Hela was slightly damaged in a British air raid on
After the end of the war, the ship was awarded to the
Initially, the ship served the port captain of
In 1992 the Hela was probably the last still active larger surface ship of the former German Navy, albeit under a foreign flag. The armament, such as the two 10.5 cm guns on the fore and aft deck, however, had already been removed. On 26 February 1995, a fire broke out in the engine room, which the crew could not extinguish and which caused severe damage.[1] Since the ship was no longer maneuverable under its own power, it was reclassified as a residential ship PKZ-14 in January 1996 and then no longer used as a command ship or government yacht. In the period that followed, up to 2006, the ship was hardly serviced and rusted away.
Fate
The ship was up for sale for a rumored USD 1.2 million as early as 2000 and was offered by a British shipbroker in later years. In 2007, following the mediation of influential Russian businessmen, the Russian Navy sold it to the Italian Antonio Crispino (with Ellici Trasporti srl as a contractual partner), who wanted to convert it into a sea-going luxury yacht. The final selling price has not been published. On 29 April 2011, the planning and development work began, with which the Italian company Navirex was entrusted by Mario Grasso and the Francesco Rogantin Studio for Naval Architecture and Engineering, with Mr. Fausto Corradini as coordinating project manager. After the hull had already been derusted and re-preserved in a dry dock and propellers and shafts had been removed, the ship was towed to the pier of a shipyard in Sevastopol. There the crane was removed first and by mid-2012 all the superstructures and the funnel were also removed.[2][3]
A yacht that was to be chartered out was planned with ten large cabins, the individual design of which was to be modeled on the
In the fourth quarter of 2019, the ship was scrapped at the Inkerman demolition yard.[4]
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PKZ-14 on 30 August 2005
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PKZ-14 on 18 July 2008
Citations
- ^ a b c d e "Hela History". www.german-navy.de. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
- ^ "Новые фото в Фотоальбоме ЧФ - Страница 52 - Sevastopol.info". forum.sevastopol.info. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
- ^ http://s019.radikal.ru/i612/1205/f1/3fea020ceaff.jpg [bare URL image file]
- ^ "Angara - ShipSpotting.com - Ship Photos and Ship Tracker". www.shipspotting.com. Retrieved 16 September 2021.