"Ocean Paradise" repaired "China ship" has returned to the Rhine in Beuel

Beuel/Cologne · The "Ocean Paradise" has returned its mooring off the banks of the Rhine in Beuel. It had been undergoing extensive repairs at the Deutz shipyard in Cologne since Tuesday.

China-Schiff wird von Beuel nach Köln geschleppt - Bilder
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China-Schiff ist zurück am Beueler Rheinufer

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Foto: Benjamin Westhoff

The "China ship" is back alongside the banks of the Rhine in Beuel. The "Ocean Paradise" arrived on Friday afternoon. She had been towed to the Cologne shipyard Deutz on Tuesday for extensive repair work to the ship's hull.

The Chinese restaurant on board will be open until the end of September. Then landlord Huan Zhang will retire, after which the ship will be sold and converted into a modern restaurant, but will remain moored alongside the banks of the Rhine in Beuel.

The "Ocean Paradise" is part of the cityscape

The "China Ship" that is moored on the Rhin in Beue next to the Kennedy Bridge is an integral part of Bonn's cityscape. From Thursday to Friday, however, the mooring of the "Ocean Paradise", as the floating restaurant is called, was deserted as urgent repairs were due. "The owner was concerned that the hull would touch bottom at low tide and be damaged," explains engineer Frank Hebel of the Cologne shipyard Deutz (KSD), which carried out the work on the pagoda ship.

"Fortunately, it turned out that the damage was much less than feared," says Hebel. The hull was repaired in two places that had already been waterproofed by the operator. In two other places, the experts were not quite sure whether they might not still leak. Therefore, they were repaired as a precaution.

"When we inspected the hull on shore, it turned out that one of the damaged areas was right under the slipway wagon used to pull the ship ashore," explains Hebel. So the hull was jacked up and the trolley dismantled to enable us to work on the damaged area. Although this took some extra effort, the scope of the work was less than had been feared. "In the end, towing the ship here was more costly than the actual repairs," says Hebel with a smile.

The ship is almost 100 years old

In addition to the repairs, the entire hull of the "Ocean Paradise" was tested for strength with ultrasound equipment. After all, the ship is almost 100 years old. It was built in 1929 as a car ferry. In 1988, the Schmitz brothers' shipping company in Beuel rescued the ferry, "Königswinter II," from the ship's graveyard. In 1990, it was converted into a floating restaurant in Rotterdam.

"The ultrasound inspections have shown that we are still in the clear everywhere," says Hebel, "it all still looks very good." He roughly estimates the repair costs will be between 5,000 and 10,000 euros. "Then there are the costs for towing it here and back to Bonn. The transport costs are probably about as high as the repair costs.

Shipyard employees are interested in the Pagoda ship

The "Ocean Paradise" was last on the slipway at KSD in 2007. Hebel was happy to see his old friend again. "It's a special eye-catcher. Something like this is always nice," he said as he looked down at the work being done on the ship below him. "The administration staff, for example, are not usually that interested in the ships that are moored here. But they looked out of their windows every now and then and are happy."

The experienced engineer has already seen a lot. One of the most unusual ships was certainly the Dutch "Vlotburg". The vessel had been converted into a floating knight's castle and served as a travelling museum with exhibits from the early Middle Ages. "They even had a real-life horse on deck. It stayed on board during the entire stay at the shipyard," Hebel recalls.

Another time, the shipyard received an unexpected visit from the "Muhboot". The promotion ship of the Milka company, naturally all in the colours of the chocolate brand, had come to the shipyard unannounced with an acute problem. A huge purple cow adorned the foredeck.

Original text: Benjamin Westhoff and Holger Willcke

Translation: Jean Lennox

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