GREENPEACE

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shipstamps
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GREENPEACE

Post by shipstamps » Tue Feb 24, 2009 4:27 pm






Stanley Gibbons gives her as RAINBOW WARRIOR also in Watercraft on Stamps II by Katherine A. Kirk is she given as so, but comparing photo’s with the stamp design it clearly shows she is the former Dutch tug ELBE, also the name on the bow of the 150L stamp gives GREENPEACE.

Built as a deep-sea tug under yard No 876 by J &K Smit’s Scheepswerven, Kinderdijk, Netherlands for L. Smit & Co’s Internationale Sleepdienst, Rotterdam.
25 April 1958 keel laid down.
14 October 1958 launched as the ELBE.
Tonnage 887 grt, 603 net, dim. 58.09 x 11.23 x 5.44m, length bpp. 52.15m.
Powered by two 6-cyl. Smit/MAN diesel, 3.161 hp, speed 16 knots.
Crew 25.
18 February 1959 trials.
24 February 1959 delivered to owners.

After delivery used for world wide towing, some remarkable voyages were:
24 August 1959 towed two baby flat-tops (aircraft carriers) from Boston, USA to Belgium, for scrapping. After a passage of 29 days the ELBE arrived in Antwerp. When passing the English Channel she did give on baby flat-top off to an other tug, the tow with a length of 1km was too long to pass safely through Strait Dover. Average speed during the passage over the North Atlantic was 5 knots.

Half October 1959 she arrived again in the USA, she left from New York with two baby flat-tops and via the Panama Canal and Honolulu, Hawaii to Japan.
After she left Honolulu she was running in heavy weather in a position about 1200 miles west of Honolulu, winds with hurricane force hit the tug with her tows, the towline to the first flat-top broke in the high seas, by pulling in the broken part of the towline in the tug, the line got entangled in the propellers, the engines were stopped. The other baby flat-top had to be let go, to avoid a collision with the tug. The three vessels drifted around in the high seas.
After 5 days one of the flat-tops was picked up by the tug CLYDE a sistership of the ELBE, who was also underway with two flat-tops to Japan, but when she heard the problems the ELBE did have she left her flat-tops at anchor in Honolulu and came to the assistants of her sister. The other flat-top was picked up by a Canadian tug the SUDBURY II who was on a homeward voyage from Japan without a tow.
The ELBE got a tow from an American Navy tugboat and was towed to Honolulu, but before she arrived there the crew managed to clear the propeller and she entered Honolulu under her own power.
07 January 1960 she left Honolulu with one flat-top in tow and arrived safely in Japan.

During 1965 she towed the two parts of the broken Dutch tanker PENDRECHT from Montevideo to Schiedam, Netherlands for repair.

1972 The companies name was restyled in Smit International.

During the last years in service as a tug mostly used in offshore work, she towed oilrigs and with other tugs she moved complete production installations.

1976 Sold to Association of Maryland Pilots, Baltimore, USA and refitted in a pilot tender by the Verolme United Shipyard in Cobh, Ireland, renamed MARYLAND.
1985 Sold to unknown buyers in Panama, renamed in GONDWANA, most probably Greenpeace was already the owner.
31 May 1985 arrived at the Oranjewerf B.V. at Amsterdam for a refit in an expedition ship for Greenpeace.


18 August 1985 sold to Greenpeace International Inc., Miami, USA and renamed in GREENPEACE.
24 January 1988 she sailed from Lyttelton, New Zealand after a delay of two weeks due to engine trouble. She sailed for the Ross Island where she supplied the World Park Base, from there she proceded to the Italian and German bases camps in the Terra Nova Bay en the former basis camps of New Zealand and the USA at Cape Hallett. A planed visit to the Russian bases camp on the Oates Coast and the French base at Adelie Land was cancelled due to heavy ice and bad weather.
3 March 1988 she returned in Lyttelton.
09 March she sailed for Ushuaia, Argentine where more Greenpeace members joined the ship. She sailed from there to the South Shetlands Islands and the polar base camps south of South America.
End April she returned in Ushuaia.
After a second visit of Deception Islands and the South Shetlands she sailed to Auckland, New Zealand via the Pitcairn Islands, arrived 31 May 1988 in Auckland.
Thereafter operated mostly in the waters of the Pacific.
1995 She entered the forbidden zone around the Mururoa atoll, which was used by the French as a nuclear underground testing side.
02 September 1995 entered by French commando’s and arrested. The GREENPEACE was towed to Hao Ata a position about 700 km from the testing side.
21 March 1996 handed back to the owners, arrived 05 April in Auckland for survey of the damage sustained during the arrest by the French.
Repaired at Whangarei, New Zealand, left from there on 13 May and via Auckland, Sydney and Manila sailed to Shanghai to protest there against the nuclear testing of the Chinese Government.
12 June 1996 arrived on the road of Shanghai, but entering the port was forbidden by the port authorities.
Under escort of the Chinese Navy sailed out of the Chinese territorial waters. She sailed via Hong Kong to Japan to protest to the whaling in Japan.

1997 Under Dutch flag and managed by Greenpeace International, Amsterdam.

End 2001 out of service by Greenpeace, and taken over in 2002 by the Havenmuseum Rotterdam.
Renamed again in ELBE. Berthed at the Wilton Haven in Schiedam for restoration.

30 July 2004 a heavy-lift vessel came in collision with the berthed ELBE and without minutes the engine room of the ELBE was flooded and she sank partly, but within 24 hours she was refloated.

After a period in dry-dock for repairs, but she was not lucky the same year on 27 October she sank again with heavy damage on the interior, almost a week she was under water before she was refloated.

12 February 2005 was she moved from Schiedam to the Wijnhaven in Maassluis in front of the old office of Smit & Co.

2009 She is still there under restoration, but a few days in the week is she open for the public, owner is the Stichting Maritime Collectie Rijnmond.
Equasis gives the owner as Buitenmuseum Leuvehaven, Rotterdam. IMO No. 5100427.

Rumania 1997 150Le/2500Le sg 5861/64, scott 4141/4 and 4050Le sgMS5865 scott 4145.

Source: Blauwe Wimpel. New Zealand Marine News. Some web-sites.

aukepalmhof
Posts: 7771
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:28 am

Re: GREENPEACE

Post by aukepalmhof » Tue Jul 18, 2017 11:05 am

France 2017 20gr letter sg?, scott?
Attachments
elbe 1958 1.jpg
2017 ELBE 3.jpg
1997 Greenpeace-Ship ms .jpg
1997 Greenpeace-Ship.jpg
1997 Greenpeace-Ship.370l jpg.jpg
1997 Greenpeace-Ship. 1940l jpg.jpg
Greenpeace-Ship. 2500l jpg.jpg
Last edited by aukepalmhof on Thu Oct 29, 2020 9:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

D. v. Nieuwenhuijzen
Posts: 871
Joined: Fri Sep 24, 2010 7:46 pm

Re: GREENPEACE

Post by D. v. Nieuwenhuijzen » Wed Oct 28, 2020 7:38 pm

Senegal 2000, 3 x 250 F. StG.?
Attachments
greenpeace 2.png

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