Trips on the popular Rhine excursion boat “Moby Dick” have been cancelled until further notice. The reason is that the ship was badly damaged after being hit by a cargo ship on Saturday. It now has to be taken to the shipyard.

The collision happened at about 8 o’clock on Saturday. According to the water police, the cargo ship docked in Bonn in the morning to let a person off board but crashed into “Moby Dick” and another boat that was moored. No one was injured in the accident and on Saturday it was not yet possible to say how much property damage was caused to the two ships.

The water police also reported that another vessel came to the site around noon to pull the freighter and "Moby Dick" apart, as the two ships had become wedged together.

As the Bonner Personen-Schiffahrt announced on Facebook, the passenger ship is out of service until further notice as it will need to be repaired in the shipyard.

It is not the first time that “Moby Dick” was involved in an accident with a cargo ship. Back in 2009 it was hit by a Dutch freighter and extensive repair work was necessary. The “Rheinnixe” has also been affected by Saturday’s accident. Since its landing was also involve, there will now be schedule changes for the excursion ship.

(Original text: Tamara Wegbahn and Michael Wrobel)

Beuel's cultural scene will soon be enriched by one more attraction: Malente's Theater Palast is moving to the right side of the Rhine. The popular show stage will move from its current location on the B9 in Bad Godesberg to Pützchen in the historic fairground hall of showman Hubert Markmann.

Even before the Coronavirus pandemic, stage professionals Dirk Vossberg-Vanmarcke and Knut Vermarcke wanted to move to the sunny side of Bonn.

Now the relocation deal is perfect. "Four incredibly successful years at the B9 are behind us. But because the whole of Bonn is our home, we decided at some point to spread our wings at the end of the season and sail over to the right side of the river. For our Spiegelzelt (mirrored marquee) this must feel like a journey home, after all, it has been moving from fair to fair for almost a whole century. So where could it feel more at home than in the fairground hall in Pützchen?", the actors explained.

Malente’s Theater Palast is perhaps Bonn's most unusual stage: Knut and Dirk Vanmarcke give free rein to their passion for dance, singing and quirky costumes in Malente’s Palast on the B9 in Godesberg.

The roadworks on Reuterstraße have been there longer than expected. According to the Bonn city administration, work will continue until mid-June. They cite difficulties in the building ground and staff absences due to the Coronavirus pandemic as the reason. Building work started in January 2020 and should have been ready in February 2022.

The site on Reuterstraße has often been the cause for complaints. For example, people said there was never a construction worker to be seen. Then the traffic routing and the closure of one lane caused criticism, as there are always traffic jams on the busy stretch.

At the beginning of February, Hausdorffstraße was narrowed to one lane near the construction site. Since then, traffic has backed up there “from early in the morning until the evening all the way across August-Bier-Strasse in the direction of Eduard-Otto-Strasse in such a way that the trams also get stuck in the traffic jam. This leads to delays for all users of public transport, and this cannot be in the spirit of the Verkehrswende (rethinking transportation),” one resident complained.

Peter Esch, head of the civil engineering office, explained at the time that work was often done below ground and was not noticeable on the surface (the GA reported). Moreover, there was a time when really no one was working: the construction company had to deal with many cases of people being off sick because of Covid.

But even when the construction work is finished, Reuterstraße will not be free of closures for long: Between autumn 2022 and January 2023, the next construction site is scheduled there in another section, which is to take place in the course of the redevelopment of the motorway junction. The estimated construction time is 18 months. One lane in each direction will be kept open.

(Translations: Jean Lennox)