Only my head sticks out of the water, at eye level with the mirror-smooth surface of the Scheldt-Rhine canal, almost to the centimetre. The landscape passes me in slow motion. Sheep graze on the bank, now and then the wings of a windmill tower over the top of the dyke – all as in the perfect Dutch cliché.
I don’t swim in the water myself. I’m sitting dry and sweating on the top step of the Finnish sauna on board the river ship “Arosa Sena” and looking through the window at the lower edge of which the masses of water are sloshing past.
In contrast to the German Middle Rhine, everything on the Lower Rhine is still in flux, and nothing has dried up near the North Sea. The journey was actually supposed to go from Antwerp up the Rhine to Cologne in two days. But due to the low water, the shipping company had to reroute its new flagship at short notice. The journey continues north through the night until the next passenger changeover to Amsterdam instead of Cologne.
But the route is not so important, the ship is the destination. At the “Arosa Sena”, the fourteenth ship of the River shipping company Arosa branded with a kissing rose on the bow, it’s a brand new prototype that’s ahead of the competition.
The new building impresses not only with its five decks, four of which are passenger decks, and with its width, which is more than six meters larger than that of other cruise ships on rivers, which at 17.7 meters allows almost exclusively balcony cabins for the first time. In terms of length, the maximum of 135 meters required by law in the Lower Rhine area remains.
“The ship was built precisely for this area of operation,” says Captain Ulli Schwalbe, “so that it fits into the locks and can navigate under the bridges.” He raves about the advanced “hybridization” of the “Arosa Sena”, because thanks to the batteries She can glide silently through the water for up to 45 minutes or moor emission-free in the harbors until shore power is switched on. There have long been connections in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Düsseldorf and at the KD fleet pier in Cologne, not at the one from the city of Cologne. “The Dutch are much further along than we are,” says Schwalbe.
Innovations below deck and in the cabins
The three diesel engines, mounted on air cushions and cleaned with Adblue emissions – one in front, two aft – supply the hotel, the air conditioning and the pod drives with energy via the generators. What is produced in excess flows into the battery storage and can be called up at any time. This innovation is not visible to the passengers, but rather in small things that contribute to sustainability, such as water donations in the aisles to ban plastic water bottles on board.
Below deck, behind fire-proof doors, are the systems for heat recovery from the ventilation and for treating the waste water. The remaining sewage sludge only has to be disposed of by special companies in the ports every three weeks.
With a calm interior design that is more reminiscent of a design hotel, family cabins and, for the first time, a kids’ club on board, the shipping company wants to attract new and younger target groups to the river ship. This also seems to be the case during the holiday season. The children cavort in the two pools on the sun deck, when it is not closed because of the bridge underpass, and later bake their own pizzas for the evening with a supervisor.
The constant alternation of nature and industrial scenery
In the wheelhouse, meanwhile, Captain Schwalbe masters the balancing act between vertical clearance and draft in relation to the current water level. He knows how to calculate down to the centimeter. “There used to be low water on the Rhine,” he says. “But now it’s occurring much more frequently and much earlier in the year.”
The ship cannot yet travel up the Rhine to Cologne. On the way there, it not only passes industrial ports such as Antwerp or Rotterdam, but also its favorite section just before the Dutch-German border. Schwalbe means the Millingerwaard natural landscape near Nijmegen. “I can see wild horses from the ship.” The passengers also have the view, whether on deck, from the balcony cabin or sweating in the sauna.
Also read:
– “MS Roald Amundsen”: This is what the world’s first hybrid expedition ship looks like
– The Rhine is drying up: Satellite images show the big differences compared to last year
– Nabu cruise ranking: Environmental and climate protection is often just lip service