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MS München

MS Munchen.jpg
History
 West Germany
Name: MS München
Operator: Hapag-Lloyd
Builder: Cockerill-Sambre
Launched: May 12, 1972
In service: September 22, 1972
Fate: Lost in a storm in the North Atlantic on or about 13 December 1978
General characteristics
Class and type: LASH carrier
Length: 261.4 m
Beam: 32.2 m
Height: 18.29 m
Draught: 11.28 m
Propulsion:
Speed: 18 knots
Capacity: 44,600 long tons
Crew: 28

MS München was a German LASH carrier of the Hapag-Lloyd line that sank with all hands for unknown reasons in a severe storm in December 1978.

The most accepted theory is that one or more rogue waves hit the München and damaged her, so that she drifted for 33 hours with a list of 50 degrees without electricity or propulsion.

MS München was launched on May 12, 1972 at the shipyards of Cockerill, Hoboken, Flanders, Belgium and delivered on September 22, 1972. The München was a LASH ship and was the only ship of her kind under the German flag. She departed on her maiden voyage to the United States on October 19, 1972.

Her sister ship MS Bilderdijk was built for the Holland America Line at the Boelwerf Temse Shipyard, also in Flanders, Belgium (Yard number 859). She sailed under the Dutch flag until 1986 when she was renamed Rhine Forest. This ship was retired from commercial operation on December 15, 2007. She has been scrapped in Bangladesh.

The München departed the port of Bremerhaven on December 7, 1978, bound for Savannah, Georgia. This was her usual route, and she carried a cargo of steel products stored in 83 lighters and a crew of 28. She also carried a replacement nuclear reactor-vessel head for Combustion Engineering, Inc. This was her 62nd voyage, and took her across the North Atlantic, where a fierce storm had been raging since November. The München had been designed to cope with such conditions, and carried on with her voyage. The exceptional flotation capabilities of the LASH carriers meant that she was widely regarded as being practically unsinkable.


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