Plans to reactivate Agrippina After failing as a dumb barge,
Agrippina probably spent most of her time laying around at
Fijenoord shipyard. In 1832, there was a plan to borrow 40,000 guilders to create new engines for her, but the loan failed. In June 1833, a new plan to borrow for new engines succeeded. From this information, we have to assume that the new
Agrippina which appeared later on, was a rebuild of the old one. This is not certain but is supported by the lifespan of the ship. The new engines of
Agrippina were later reported to have been of the compound type. The high-pressure cylinder was new, and the low-pressure cylinder was taken from
Atlas.
Relaunch The original plan for new engines somehow seems to have got a much wider scope. In the second half of 1834, somebody visited Fijenoord. He dated a report of his visit to 28 October 1834. On a later visit in 1835 our visitor noted that the steamboat had indeed been commissioned, and that he had made a trip with her in summer. He also noted that
De Nederlander had been lengthened by 15 meters, and that another boat would be lengthened by 18 meters. NSM was obviously into lengthening her steamboats. Longer vessels were made possible by the use of iron elements and probably helped to diminish the draft of the boats.
Service of the new Agrippina In July 1835
Agrippina was in service between Rotterdam and Cologne. She was described as a colossal, but elegant boat of '200 feet' length, with three masts and 50 beds. The length of 200 feet seems to contradict her identification as the steamboat observed at Fijenoord in 1834. Here, the problem is in the use of different feet. The Fijenoord shipyard used English measurements for machines and boilers, but Amsterdam feet of 0.2831 m for shipbuilding. If the observers in Cologne used the common Rheinfuß of 0.314 m, the identification of the 220 feet long boat observed in 1834 with our
Agrippina is even more solid. The difference between 220 Amsterdam feet and 200 Rheinfuß is less than 50 cm. On 27 August 1836
Agrippina, commanded by Captain Cranenbroek left Düsseldorf with the third Garde
Landwehr battalion on board. This unit was commanded by Major F.W. Menckhoff, and was about to join in large scale maneuvers near Koblenz. For the occasion
Agrippina had been decorated with the arms of Prussia. The use of
Agrippina was of great use to the men of the battalion. On 28 August the about 600 men of the battalion arrived in Koblenz. In July 1837
Agrippina transported the King of Württemberg and the princesses Maria and Sophia, as well as a large escort from Cologne to The Hague. The company travelled by the names of Count and Countesses of Teck, so it did not turn into a state visit. On 6 July the company arrived in Nijmegen, where it spent the night in the Logement de Plaats Roijaal. On the morrow it continued towards The Hague on board
Agrippina.
Von Strombeck's trip In 1837
Friedrich Karl von Strombeck made a trip on board
Agrippina. At the NSM office on the Boompjes, he bought a ticket for a trip to Mainz. It cost 26 Prussian Thaler and 5 groschen for a place in the great cabin. From Cologne, a ship of the PRDG would bring him to Mainz. On 13 July at 8 AM
Agrippina left Rotterdam. Von Strombeck was impressed by the steamer with its 120 horse power. The company on deck reminded him of the arcades of a busy
Spa town. There were many, mostly Dutch ladies, young and old in elegant dresses. Some young men wore Italian
boater hats. Many older man wore travel hats, while some even wore
spurs and a horse whip. Von Strombeck found the great cabin very elegant. It had large mirrors, polished
mahogany, and brass ornaments. On the tables were newspapers in three or four languages. It even had a small library, and when a young lady asked Von Strombeck what he did, he 'could satisfy his author's vanity' by showing her his entry in the
Brockhaus Enzyklopädie. Near
Dordrecht the rudder hit something, and the cogwheel that connected to the rudder broke in three pieces. A temporary fix was made with ropes and
pulleys and six sailors pulling to move the rudder. After many stops,
Agrippina reached Nijmegen in the evening, where Von Strombeck slept in the Hotel des Pays Bas. At 7am,
Agrippina continued to Cologne. At many stations, she laid still for some time, and lowered her stairs. Small boats with red flags then quickly transferred passengers. At
Emmerich am Rhein a stop was made for customs, which checked part of the luggage. At dusk the steamer was near
Duisburg, Von Strombeck went to bed in a small room in front of the machinery, with 8 or 10 small beds. There was an
argand lamp and a facility to wash. Somewhere in the night, the makeshift fix for the rudder broke, and
Agrippina hit something, causing the lamp to be extinguished. Von Strombeck did not get much sleep, especially because of the noise that the transfer of cargo in Düsseldorf made. In the morning he saw the 'smarter' passengers which had spent the night on the couches of the great cabin.
Agrippina then reached Cologne before noon. Here Von Strombeck spent the night at the Hotel de Belle Vue in
Deutz. He would continue his voyage on the
Concordia The Gutenberg celebrations in Mainz From 13 to 16 August 1837 the city of Mainz organized a huge celebration to commemorate the invention of the printing press by
Johannes Gutenberg. On 15 August there was a maritime spectacle on the Rhine. Nearly 300 vessels formed an immense rectangle within which the games took place. There were about 50,000 spectators, many on board the vessels. Near the quay was a new steamboat with princes and princesses, invitees, and local authorities. This boat was the podium for the awards, and would of course be christened
Gutenberg. Across from the
Gutenberg lay 'the beautiful Dutch three-master'
Agrippina. On board she had a numerous military band, the direction of the games, and a number of guns operated by the Austrian artillery. The opening event consisted of 12 boats rowing the competitors, who stood at the sterns, dressed as Neapolitan fisherman. The first game consisted of recovering two flags and seizing a large
eel. The first flag was to be gained by climbing a rope dangling from the
yard of the main mast of
Agrippina. The other flag was at the end of a 40 feet bowsprit. The eel dangled from a rope spanned high over the games area, and had to be grabbed by quickly rowing a boat under it, and then jumping to grab it. The main game was about the competitors using their lance to push their adversary into the water.
Further service In September 1838, the Dutch church minister () H.F.T. Fockens made a trip along the Rhine together with his brother, who was an officer in the Dutch navy. Fockens published about this trip in a
literary magazine in 1839. After travelling to Cologne by
stagecoach, the brothers took
Agrippina from Cologne upstream. The brothers paid 15 Thaler or 27 guilders for a place in the first cabin. Some English passengers had hired the best place, the pavilion, and parked their three coaches on the front deck. Between Cologne and Bonn, Fockens met the Philosopher Christian Kapp (1798-1874) In Bonn, the brothers stayed at the Hotel de Trêves on the Great Market. Fockens main interest was to visit the
University of Bonn, and to meet the staff of the faculty of Theology. Apart from that, they also visited the regular tourist attractions like
Rolandseck and climbed the
Drachenfels. At 9 in the evening, the brothers again boarded a steamboat in
Königswinter and spent the night on board. In the early morning of 14 September, they arrived in Koblenz, where they spent the night in Hotel Bellevue. At 6:30 AM on 15 September, the brothers embarked on a steamboat from Koblenz to
Biebrich. On board was the usual very international company of tourists. Between
Sankt Goar and
Kaub the boat's staff often played a trumpet and fired cannon to hear the echo of the mountains. From the wall cannon were fired in salute at the steamboat, which had first come into service, and was called
Agrippina. After disembarking at Biebrich, the brothers continued to Frankfurt by coach. From there they went to Mainz by coach. Here, they again boarded
Agrippina downstream on 17 September. After 10.5 hours they were back in Cologne. Here they boarded a steamboat of the
Dampfschiffahrts-Gesellschaft für den Nieder- und Mittelrhein to Arnhem.
Accidents in 1841 In 1841, the steamboat season began early, when NSM's
Agrippina and
Ludwig arrived in Nijmegen on 27 January. At about 3pm on 25 September 1841, two steamboats were seen approaching the town of
Rees in Germany. The heavy exhaust plumes announced that both were making a lot of steam, even while they were going downstream. It were
Drusus of the IJssel Stoomboot Maatschappij, and NSM's
Agrippina. Very near to Rees,
Agrippina succeeded in passing Drusus to get to the pier. Because of her speed,
Agrippina then turned too quickly and too short, making the pavilion, which was on the stern, hit the pier. The damage was reportedly heavy to both ship and pier. On 2 October, the NSM reacted to the report by stating that
Agrippina arrived on schedule on the 26th, and left again according to schedule on the 27th. According to NSM, there was only some damage to the artistic carvings on the stern, and to the rear fence, and lifeboat. It was also noted that
Agrippina was much faster than
Drusus, and often overtook her on the Rhine. Furthermore, Rees was not a regular stop for
Drusus. Whatever the truth of the accident, after some more trips,
Agrippina left Rotterdam under Captain de Ruyter on 19 October. She then suddenly became very leaky on her
port side while she was near
Tiel. Within in a few moments, there were several feet of water in the cabins. The captain then saw no other option but to beach
Agrippina near
Wamel. All the passengers were saved. Attempts were made to safe the 120 tons of cargo, by bringing it on deck and transloading it on barges, but most of it was ruined. The later explanation for the accident was that the boat had hit a submerged beam, which had bent inwards an iron part of the machine. The movement of the paddle wheel would then have caused this part to create a leak. Some newspapers had details about there being 4 feet of water in the hold before
Agrippina was beached, and that the cargo consisted mainly of highly perishable sugar and
saltpeter.
Tows the first iron barge The shift from wooden barges to iron barges was a development that would allow cargo transport on the Rhine to withstand the competition of the railways and road transport. The NSM had tried establish a tug service on the Rhine since 1825, but this was not commercially viable without government subsidies. NSM then became the first company to use its own iron barges instead of towing wooden barges owned by others. The idea was that these iron barges could be made much bigger than wooden barges, and could so economize on staff. They would also be used year-round, instead of only when the wind was unfavorable. Because the hull weight was less, they would not have as much draft as wooden boats. Later experiments showed that with the same speed and expense of coal, iron barges could transport 50% more cargo. All combined, the iron barge would make towing cargo upstream profitable. In 1841, NSM launched the iron barge
Rijn I. She measured 180 by 24 feet, and had a depth of hold of 11 English feet. In 1841
Rijn I made a trip up the Rhine towed by horses. On 24 December 1841, she started a trip up the Rhine towed by
Agrippina. On 26 May both arrived in Cologne,
Agrippina towing
Rijn I of captain J.J. Visser.
Agrippina had 1,250 cwt on board.
Rijn I was loaded with 4,849 cwt, giving her a draft of 3.75 feet. The trip had been accomplished in the short time of 38 hours of steaming. It was the first trip of a towed iron barge on the Rhine. In 1842
Agrippina also towed iron barges.
Final years with NSM In the early morning of 21 October 1843, a coal barge that descended the Rhine hit
Agrippina, which was lying before the NSM office at De Boompjes. The barge sunk immediately, and had to be raised.
Agrippina probably suffered little, because on 16 November she arrived in Mannheim towing the iron
Rhein II. == The end ==