Seattle1964

@notamermaidIs your go-to on this, I think. I'll just throw in my two bits and say that because of the lock system on that stretch, they have more control over the depths. Even during these hottest month, that stretch north of Nuremberg is navigable. Wetter weather is coming before your December trip and ships are sailing now. All that said... I KNOW NOTHING. 🙂

I feel your pain. You are very lucky to being a ship swap as that means just one segment of your cruise was interrupted. Try and let that go and enjoy the rest of your cruise. Others have not been so lucky and they should be very upset; Very upset, indeed.

Not just Viking. The Atla is underway and still slated for Regensburg on the 6th, but that doesn't mean it will make it. Many others are in port at Passau and those headed that direction from Budapest show Passau as their destination, not Regensburg. There are many ships of the Atla class navigating that stretch; Many have also cancelled and four of them are holed up in Enns. @notamermaidsaid there is rain in the forecast but that single-day rains won't be enough to make anything but temporary changes. I'm no expert on that region, but Passau to/from Budapest is currently navigable and 20+ of them are doing it... including the Atla. Many more are in port, but that may just be itinerary. There are no guarantees, but that stretch hasn't been dead even with the lowest gauge readings so far as I can recall. @notamermaid??

I hope the best for all and that everyone is safe. This is sad news for me and such things I never heard of when I was growing up in the region. I really don't understand how so many aren't taking all of this with great earnest! It's one thing to have your school replaced by a fashion mall (real story) but to literally have your world burning is just unimaginable. It will only get worse, I'm afraid. All the best to everyone and let's not forget our Ukrainian friends... they'd probably trade for wild fires in a heartbeat. Sort of makes our first-world problems rather insignificant. Not that $10k USD isn't significant... but it isn't a human life or the place I grew up that is gone forever. Humility. 😌

Denny, I'm guessing you were to be on the River Splendor from Budapest to Bucharest. Splendor is no longer holed up in Regensburg and is slated to be in Enns (just SW of Linz) instead of Budapest on the 29th. In any event, sorry your trip was cancelled and I hope they treated you better than they did us (five in all). I'll never use Vantage, again.

Things are looking better today than just 3 days ago and the Amadeus Silver III is underway just east of Regensburg. I think it may be unladen as it's current draught is reported as 150cm, but I'm just guessing and assuming that's accurate. In any event, there are ships of that class navigating the region you detailed and if things don't get worse, the only iffy section will be Regensburg to Passau. Anything can happen in those two weeks, though, but it does look promising at this juncture. I have no crystal ball and not nearly the experience of people in this forum like @notamermaid or @Steamboat, but if it was me, I would be a bit relieved that you're starting in Cologne and not planning on going past Passau. To some extent, they have options with the locks north/east of Passau.

"rainmaking" apparatus. Usually just fuming chemicals and/or gunpowder to make "thundermugs" and "lightningmugs" LOL It was quite the presentation and to "simple" people, seemed to be very advanced technology. Sounds like thunder and makes bright flashes at dawn/dusk, must be a storm! Even modern cloud seeding is inconclusive as to whether is causes a statistically significant increase in precipitation. And... of course... there need to be clouds for precipitation to occur no matter what the rainmaker claims. 🙂

If only. We wouldn't have any problems at all if such metaphysical powers prevailed. Laughing with you! 🤣 In ones personal life, I think a realistic positive disposition is healthy and rewarding even if we can't affect the physical world around us. Rainmakers back in the day made off with a lot of good people's monies, so don't be too positive/trusting. BTW, I just got %$%& out of about $10k by the travel company. They don't want to lose any money, but they don't care if any of us do. ALWAYS research an agency BEFORE you book. It's easy to get good reviews (just 20% in this case) when nothing goes wrong... but look into what they do when things go sideways; It's never to the customer's advantage and they hide behind e-mail with nothing but platitudes as they shine you on. Still... going to stay positive because there are just some things that are out of our control and we need to accept them. Weather is out of anyone's control.... how you treat people is not. 👍

Everyone on the River Splendor heading to Budapest was just informed that they will not be able to make it beyond Regensburg and will be put up in hotels and use land transportation for the remaining 5 days of the river cruise they booked. There are people on that ship that were slated to continue on the run from Budapest to Bucharest for another two weeks of cruising, but they were not told what their fate will be; Not even a list of possibilities. Can you believe that? And... I am supposed to meet with some of them in Budapest in a week! Has the cruise line contacted me? No. Have they responded with any information to all the queries I have made over the last week? No. I really only booked because my friends were going and it sounded like fun being that my formative years were in Europe. Now that I have looked into the cruise line, I am beginning to get a sick feeling in my stomach. I paid over $10k with a check for a discount... no way to do a chargeback or dispute the charge. I also bought the cancel-for-any-reason insurance... yeah, right. Apparently "Any" has a new definition that you and I don't know. Ugh If *I* saw it coming, then they knew it was coming, too. Written notices to those presently on the vessel, but NOTHING to those due to fly out in a week. SMH 🤬

I don't know the designed draught of that vessel, but it's reported draught is currently 170cm... which is at least 20cm less than Viking... or about 8 inches.

Well, that's twice I've made that mistake. But, to be fair, it's a coin toss when there are no gender indicators and if I get it wrong then you understand why I don't ever gamble money. LOL And, way off topic: By the way, ma'am, in all my business correspondence the gender-neutral is "Dear Sirs" 🙂 I can't imagine I will ever use "Xer", as is often suggested. Unfortunately, perhaps, much of our language is rooted in a misogynistic time but it's just colloquial, now, and without intention. English, like Spanish, is a Latin derivative and inanimate objects have gender, which is why every ship is a "she" even if it has a typically male name. That's not to say that "ship" has a Latin root... it's Germanic. (Latin "naves" or "navis" is gendered female.) I often praise an unknown pet with "good boy!" and it's without knowing whether it is male or not. 🤪 Thank you for correcting me!

I'm not so sure the ship architects/builders are the ones to blame here C.A.. (see my other post about Dunning-Kruger) Ostensibly, one would think that changing the length of a river ship is trivial as they aren't really subjected to lateral forces beyond the wake of other ships. Think of it as a pool noodle... every section of that noodle, no matter how long, will displace the same ratio of water to its length. Makes sense... as a noodle twice as long weighs twice as much so it must displace twice as much water. Making the noodle longer doesn't make it sit lower in the water, though... the draught is constant. So why is it different with a ship? It's different because you didn't just change the length of the vessel, you also changed the center of mass and the ship structure now needs to be able to support the extended length and correct for what is known as the "modulus of elasticity." To keep it simple, think of a steel I-beam. If you double the width of the vertical flange (the "web") the load capacity is essentially doubled. But if you increase the height of the web, out popular square-law raises its head again and the increase in load capacity is exponential. You would only need to increase the height by 41% for it to be twice as strong! Cool stuff. Picture that... you can have either 200% the steel (thickness) or 141% the steel (height) for the same effect. Yes, I am ignoring torsion, etc, but jut trying to make a point as to why you can't just make a ship longer and keep it shallow. So, what's the easiest way, and the most weight efficient way, to increase the strength of a longer ship? Increase its overall hull height, which necessarily increases the draught since you can't go up any higher (clearances, as @Steamboat put a fine point on it) and stability. Check out videos on the MS Arvin if you want to see what happens when the forces are too great for the structure in a long ship. 🙂 The number of things to consider in design are mind-numbing... but rest assured it's not the engineers/architects, as @Steamboat first brought up.

100%. The Vantage River Splendor is a 135m ship with a draught of about 146cm, for example, so will do what the Viking line cannot. Still, no one is going to push the limit and risk damaging a keel, engine, or hull and those margin decisions seem to be all over the board, right now.

Yes, sir. I was probably unclear on that being the "air draught" and it's not just limited by physical obstructions but by the overall dimensions of the ship. (stability, buoyancy, et al) Not many people use that term, but the draught line defines two different dimensions... on above and one below. 🙂

This is technically true, however there are boundaries for any given parameter as there are not only laws of physics to ensure stability/buoyancy but hydrodynamics and river/tributary constraints , both natural and man-made. Contemporary inland vessels are more science than art and adhere to strict regulations on design and operation. So, you could build a ship that is as wide as it is long with a very low draught as it would displace significantly more water than the vessel, alone, weighs. But, as you said, there are physical constraints that need to be met or you're not getting there from here and that's ignoring the poor design of such a hypothetical ship. Since the width and length are both constrained by the lock sizes (max. width of the ship 11.4m) in order to traverse all 68 of them, there is context that can't be ignored. Of course some are more accommodating like the Iron Gate locks (34m wide, I believe). To further complicate matters, draught is not a static principle as "squat" affects vessels moving in shallow(er) waters. To counter this dynamic force, the ship must reduce speed when navigating in waters close to critically low. This effect is greater on longer vessels and is one of many square-law forces. That is, that if the speed of the vessel is doubled, the squat force will quadruple. It's the Bernoulli principle of water. 🙂 Speaking of Bernoulli, the height above the water line is known as the "air draught" and is also regulated by agencies as well as constrained by the physics... including the maximum draught. So, yes, one cannot state the draught of a random vessel just by knowing the air draught dimensions, but these are very specific vessels designed for a very specific purpose and geography so it's a bit disingenuous to claim that draught, air draught, width, and length are completely independent parameters. " draft has nothing to do with the length or width" is pretty emphatic but only true out of context. For the record, the 110m River Duchess is listed as 152cm draught, but the current draught is showing at 1.6m as of July 16th. I don't know of a loaded 135m vessel with that shallow of a draught. I think it was you that said the Viking ships were spec'd at 190cm... which, like the Duchess, isn't necessarily the real-world case. But, hey, I'm no expert... just hard to shake 40 years of engineering even when you're retired. 🤪