Live tracking of U17 When the submarine passes Bonn and the region
Bonn/Region · Next weekend there will be a rare spectacle to see: A nearly 50-metre-long 500-ton submarine will pass Cologne, Bonn and Koblenz. We reveal at what time it will probably be seen and where.
This extraordinary event is not to be missed: On Sunday, 14 May, a submarine will pass Cologne, Bonn and Koblenz on the Rhine. The submarine in question is the U17 - a nearly 50-metre-long discarded Bundeswehr submarine that has a draught of 4.6 metres and displaces about 500 tonnes when submerged. The submarine will be transported on a floating pontoon to the Technik Museum in Speyer, Rhineland-Palatinate.
At 6 a.m., the transport convoy is scheduled to start in Cologne near the old bastion and will start the day's journey from there to Lahnstein, where it is expected to arrive at 6.30 p.m. as scheduled. On the way, U17 will also pass Bonn, Königswinter, Bad Honnef and Koblenz on the Rhine.
At which time U17 can be seen in Bonn and the region
According to information from the Technik Museum, the transport ship should be travelling between eight and ten kilometres per hour. Based on this data, we have calculated the approximate times at which the submarine is scheduled to be seen at the earliest at the respective location in Bonn and the region.
6 a.m.: Departure in Cologne at the Bastei
6.24 a.m.: Cologne-Bayenthal/Poll
6.42 a.m.: Cologne-White/Westhoven
7.30 a.m.: Cologne-Sürth/Langel
8.00 a.m.: Wesseling
8.18 a.m.: Niederkassel
8.54 am: Hersel/Mondorf
9.06 am: Bonn-Graurheindorf
9.24 a.m.: Bonn centre Brassertufer/Kennedy bridge
9.42 am: Bonn-Gronau
9.54 am: Bonn-Oberkassel
10.06 a.m.: Bad Godesberg
10.24 a.m.: Königswinter
10.48 a.m.: Bad Honnef
11.00: Rheinbreitbach
11.12 a.m.: Unkel
11.30 a.m.: Remagen
11.54 a.m.: Linz
The more than three-week journey from Kiel to Speyer
In Kiel, the submarine was loaded onto the 85-metre-long floating pontoon with a 900-tonne gantry crane on 28 April and began its more than three-week journey to Speyer the following day. There, U17 is scheduled to go ashore in the natural harbour on 17 May. It will then be transported by heavy goods vehicle to the Technik Museum Speyer on 21 May. If everything goes according to plan, U17 will be transported to the Technik Museum Sinsheim in 2024 and made accessible to the public there.
U17 was in service from 1973 until it was decommissioned in 2010. After it was decommissioned, it lay in the naval arsenal in Wilhelmshaven for eleven years. At the beginning of April, the submarine was lifted into a dry dock at the German Naval Yards Kiel with a mighty 900-ton gantry crane to be demilitarised. In the process, it was made unfit for war by, for example, removing the weapon systems and batteries and drilling into the submersible cells.
Project U17 is the first large-scale transport in over ten years. Some people in the Rhine region can certainly still remember the transports of the space shuttle "Buran" in 2008 and the Boeing 747 in 2002, both of which were also shipped across the Rhine to Speyer.
(Original text: Sarah Remsky; Translation: Mareike Graepel)
