RDVIK2016

I was on the other side of town, Eastern Point, West Side. Amby was one year ahead of me. I was on the track team with him. So we were not classmates, but we surely have a bunch of acquiantances/friends in common. Were you a runner? Here's Amby and friends at the unveiling of a statue of his HS coach and fellow Boston Marathon winner. Have you seen it?

Microman123, Groton Mystic or Stonington Mystic? 1965 high school grad? Me too (Fitch). You mentioned not being able to send a PM here. PMs were disabled a long time ago. CruiseCritic likes to have everyone keep themselves anonymous, but If you were Fitch class of 1965, that means we were classmates and I'll give you an email address that does not contain my true name. RDVIK

I thought that was SSN 586 Triton that had that issue, because she was so much bigger than other boats up to that time - twin reactors and all. After that grounding incident they started loading big concrete blocks topside fixed with heavy chains to cleats or pad-eyes to the hull then drop them as the the boat slid into the water to drag the boat to a halt. Boats didn't go far into the river after they started that process. Our last slider was SSN771 - now all are floated off in the graving dock.

In case PHutch doesn't see your question try Hutkönig am Dom - right across the square from the cathedral. That's probably the place their talking about. If you are interested in traditional Bavarian clothing - Tracht - there are multiple stores. Moser has an outlet-type store as well as its city center store, but the outlet is not in the center of town. I got a shirt and vest there once.

I was at EB for 41 years, but my military service was Army, not Navy. My brother-in-law was a submariner - diesel boats - and later worked for EB also. With my kids currently working there my family is in our fourth generation at EB going back to the 1920's when it was called New London Ship and Engine Co. That's on both my side and my wife's. My first time in the shipyard was when my father took me to the keel laying ceremony of USS Nautilus and President Harry Truman had his initials welded into the keel plate.

Your "Blew the water ballast" comment brings back to me memories of being on a submarine at X depth when the high pressure Emergency Main Ballast Tank Blow system was tested - nice ride back to the surface. I don't know if river cruise ships actually have a pressurized air blow system or just pump the tanks out.

Kenster and Yorkieboy1972, this does not directly address your situations, but Viking Longships have a maximum draft (Tiefgang) of 2.0 meters and minimum of 1.6m shown in Binnenschifferforum. I had asked about this during a Rhine cruise when the captain of our ship was addressing the passengers and as I remember he said something about being able to scrape by with a 1.5m draft if minimum supplies, fuel, persons, etc. were on board and ballast tanks were filled with air. That's not a big range. At maximum draft the height above the water surface (Fixpunkt) of the ship, with everything topside lowered, can be as little as 6.15m. When the water levels reach the highest allowed for river traffic (HSW) the bridge at Passau has only 5.6m clearance about the water surface. So Viking Longships cannot go there even if smaller ships are still allowed to move.

By sheer dumb luck our recent three weeks in Europe were pretty timed perfectly. Right after the late snows of April, and before the floods of May. And we were in Prague just before the madness of the international Ice hockey championships and in Munich in mid May to just beat the UEFA matches. I've also got a Munich related instagram video from a Fußball fan to share as he discusses the weather. If I am ever z'Minga (in Munich) for a match at Allianz Arena I'll see if it is possible to get a taxi ride with this driver, Isaak. He is a huge Bayern München fan and has his own following as the "kulttaxifahrercisse". His Bavarian dialekt is great. And they say the immigrants don't assimilate! https://www.instagram.com/reel/C79CghxCpka/

Is that two full weeks now that TUI ISLA has been stuck in Deggendorf? Still at the Deggenau harbor as of about 02:30 CEST on 14 June.

I'll pay attention to the group phase but am not yet very excited. I've expended a lot of mental energy recently cheering my favorite teams, happily the winners, in the recent ice hockey championships (Česko), USA NCAA basketball tournament (UCONN), and the Relegation contests for promotion from the 3. Liga to the 2. Bundesliga (Jahn Regensburg). I successfully sent good vibes to the German World Cup team in 2014 by digging out and wearing my old 1992 German National Team jersey just before Mario Götze scored in extra time. I'm sure it was that little bit of extra positive energy that I sent that made the difference. LOL!

TUI Isla is the ship that got stuck at a flooded berth in Deggendorf with all the passengers being evacuated and flown home. She finally moved, but just to the industrial area, Deggenau, on the the downstream side of Deggendorf. From what I can gather Isla was supposed to leave on 7 June from Frankfurt for a round trip cruise to Basel and back after eight days. It would be interesting to know if she has issues being addressed at Deggenau and if she makes to Frankfurt for the next planned cruise starting presumably on 15 or 16 June. TUI doesn't have enough boats to do ship swaps, do they?

CEST 05:45 Avalon Imagery II has left Kelheim - She had been stopped at Regensburg on 29 May on her way to Budapest. Cruise Mapper shows her next itinerary is 4 June from Budapest to 18 Jun Amsterdam and should be in Roth 11 June. Well she will be there. I wonder how the passengers on this B to A itinerary got from Budapest to Kelheim to meet the ship or it that cruise was canceled and Avalon just wants to get the boat to Amsterdam for its next cruise. Avalon Impression is still at Kelheim.

On "hotel ships" it seems the lead officer is called "Captain", but "Master" seems to be used most often when talking about cargo vessels on the river. On our first Viking river cruise, during presentation of the crew, the Captain was most informative about his officers and he very clearly called his two deck officers "Pilots". He and those two pilots were qualified to navigate the ship unsupervised. On our other cruises they referred to both of their two qualified helmsmen/navigators as first officers. I saw a Dutch language job posting for Viking river cruises for a "Tweede Kapitein" - 2nd Captain, but in English the posting for the same job was for "1st Officer" and a job requirement was to have a Boatmaster's license with a "Patent" for the Rhine and/or Danube. Somewhere I saw that someone called a 2nd Officer is in training and can steer the ship under supervision. Nautical terminology is sometimes rather opaque and esoteric.

DW and I were recently in Germany and Czechia. Mustangs were the the most common American vehicle I spotted. I would not want to fill the tank at 1.80 € per liter as it was in Germany. Only other American vehicles I more than once were Dodge Ram or similar pick-ups.

When looking at the the current position of Avalon Impression she seems to be tied directly to the seawall next a to dock labeled "Viking". I did not know that Viking had a dock there, but makes sense to let passengers off there for Weltenburg excursions while the ship then continues to Regensburg. Avalon Imagery II finally got underway from Schwabelweiß/Regensburg but got a far as Kelheim and moored to the Anlegestelle close to town. There was quite a lot of resistane in the Altmühltal to the canal coming through there as it had so much more impact than the old Ludwig-Donau-Main-Kanal RDVIK

Let me know when you set up such a cruise combined with the use of a 1960 Borgward Isabella TS Cabriolet or a DKW Auto Union 1000 Sp of 1962-1965, preferably in the light yellow color. Those two cars qualify as mega adorable.

Phillies Phanatic was really rocking that Buckingham Palace guard uniform. Gritty might want to help guard the Tower of London as a Beefeater. Who do you suggest pair up with the Flyers for an NHL game in London?

It appears that Avalon Imagery II was on a planned cruise from Basel to Budapest, got as far as Regensberg on the 29th of May and could not go farther. She should be in back in Regensberg on Monday the 10th on a Budapest to Amsterdam trip. Will be interesting to see which direction Imagery II goes now. Her current location is at the industrial harbor in the Ostenviertel of Regensberg, across the river from the Schwabelweiß district. This long term high water event will really test the abilities of some cruise companies to reposition their ships to recapture as much of their schedules as possible.

That's clever, but can those cans capture the fertile country air (Landluft) aroma of warm Mist heaps? (Here's a tip though: Check the ingredients of cans containing Landluft and avoid any that mention Gülle - that's Mist in a tank without the straw.)

If one mixes German and English meanings of mist can this picture be captioned "Misty Mist"? A German farmer could be pleased with the contributions of his animals to that warm, steamy Mist heap full of fertile additives for the soil of his fields. RDVIK

In my post #208 on this forum I shared a couple of photos of a man-made lake that serves as a flood control project for the Chamb, a tributary of the Regen, and mentioned that part of the project was to provide an additional flood plain area contain potential floodwaters. It did its job this time. There was some limited flooding - as of the railroad tracks between Furth im Wald and Cham, but that was because of other smaller streams that empty in to the Chamb downstream of the dam. The linked article (sorry for the limited text due to a paywall) describes the situation and provides a photo of the planned floodwater storage area. https://www.idowa.de/regionen/cham/furth-im-wald/further-stausee-erreicht-rekordpegel-3774074.html

Well, that's a couple more of bullets my wife and I dodged. We drove the A9 from Nuremberg to Munich on May 16 so we beat that flooding near Ingolstadt. A couple of weeks earlier we had taken the train from Prague as far as Cham in Germany, the second stop after the border from Czechia. The attached photo shows a big crowd of young folks who were coming home from a Metalfest rock concert in Pilsen this past weekend who had to get off the train in Furth im Wald, the first stop in Germany, and wait for busses to get them around the flooded tracks.

Hello, @Yorkieboy1972 and thank you for the commentary and photos from your adventure. Where did you disembark from the barge?

How about that landing at the end of Eginger Straße? Looking at aerial views it seems that might have access to infrastructure. Also there must be ability to get vehicles very close to a ship nearby at Deggenau, unless the floodwaters match the levels of 2013 or worse. Are you thinking of the BMW plants in Dingolfing? and the other one at Wallersdorf about half way between Dingolfing and Deggendorf? When Hans Glas was building the Goggomobils and was bought by BMW the scale of today's factories could not be forseen. RDVIK

During the floods in 2013 even the industrial area of the Deggenau part of Deggendorf was flooded. A Viking Longship looked for refuge there. Still this would have withstood the floodwaters better than that spot where TUI tied up ISLA with @Yorkieboy1972 on board.