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Author Topic: Paddle boats of Prague  (Read 3008 times)

Edmund

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Paddle boats of Prague
« on: April 10, 2016, 06:15:52 pm »

Anyone know anything about the interesting paddle boats of Prague?

On a recent holiday there I found a number of interesting river boats.  Two preserved paddle steamers, a wrecked paddle steamer being used as a bar and floating second hand shop, and a couple of motor powered tourist boats which had clearly had a previous existence as their hulls were far older than the modern superstructure.  They were particularly interesting as they were sternwheelers with a double paddle driven centrally hidden under small paddle boxes.

Here are some photos and if anyone knows anything more about any of them I would be interested to know.

tony52

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Re: Paddle boats of Prague
« Reply #1 on: April 10, 2016, 11:41:40 pm »

Edmund, I had a look in Russell Plummer's book, Paddle Steamers of the 1990's, and the paddlers appear to be Vltava and Vysehrad (I) or Vysehrad (II) owned by the PPS (Prague Passenger Shipping). There is too much information in the book to list in this post, so I had had a look on the internet and found the information which is in the link. The Sumava isn't in the book, but is listed in the link.
http://www.paddlesteamers.info/PraguePassengerShipping.htm

Hope this is of value and a start to the research.
Tony.
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Edmund

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Re: Paddle boats of Prague
« Reply #2 on: April 11, 2016, 06:14:21 pm »

Thank you Tony, for all that information!  The two steam ships look in good working order, and were set to be making weekly cruises from the end of this month. 

It looks perhaps as if time has not been kind to the original Vysehrad and that is perhaps the stripped down hulk  with bar and street market  on itt whose bare paddle wheel is my 3rd photo.  I may be wrong of course.

The Sumava is a particularly interesting vessel, along with I beleive two sisters in Prague, one a static restaurant and the other seeming to operate not with paddles in its paddle boxes but large propellers that were positioned only half in the water.    Again I may be wrong as it was difficult to see what was inside the enclosed paddle  boxes.

I found on the web a picture of a model of Sumava at the Prague model boat club.  It would be very interesting if someone could find some pictures of these stern wheel paddle tugs in their original 1953 form.  They still retain some splendid engineroom casings and hatches forward of their modern deck houses. The hulls by the way are of a riveted construction.

tony52

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Re: Paddle boats of Prague
« Reply #3 on: April 12, 2016, 09:36:15 am »

Edmund, I must agree that the paddle wheels belong to the Vysehrad (I) and the paddler is in a weary state. I did wonder if they belonged to the Labe, which is mentioned in the Russell Plummer book. In the book the Labe is in poor condition having been taken out of service in 1987, but this is not the case. I researched the Labe further and found the vessel has been restored and is now operating as the Wesertolz in Bremen, so from my view (as paddlers are one of my subjects of interest), some good news - thanks for the interest this research has generated.

http://www.paddlesteamers.info/Labe.html

Next, I will have a look for the model of the Sumava at the Prague model boat club.
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Edmund

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Re: Paddle boats of Prague
« Reply #4 on: April 12, 2016, 11:01:11 am »

I was wrong about the Prague model boat club.  The model appears in a model village advertised on the internet in Czechoslovakia.  There are many things illustrated but Sumava appears in the list of photos of models and a very nice model it seems to be:

http://parkboheminium.cz/STR4-AJ-modely.html

vadam77

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Re: Paddle boats of Prague
« Reply #5 on: May 31, 2016, 06:30:11 am »

Hi, I'm not sure if this helps ..... http://www.paroplavba.cz/lod-sumava



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