S.S. ADMIRAL NAKHIMOV

Black Sea Shipping Company (BLASCO)

Soviet Union, Ukraine

 

BLASCO issued postcard, 1977.

 

Built: 1925 by Bremer-Vulkan Shipyard in Bremen, Germany. Rebuilt at Warnow Shipyard in Warnemunde, between 1951 and 1954.

Technical:  

Overall length: 174.3 m

Beam: 21.1 m

Draft: 9.0 m

Gross Tonnage: 17053 tons

Passengers: 1100

Power: 2 x 4-cylinder, triple acting steam expansion engines. 12000 HP.

Service Speed: 16.0 knots

Operating Routes: As S.S. Berlin, Bremen-New York Atlantic crossings. As S.S. Admiral Nakhimov, regular Black Sea coastal service between Odessa and Batum with stops at Yalta, Novorossiysk, Sevastopol, Batum and Sochi. Also occasional Atlantic crossings to Cuba.

Sister (or similar) Ships: None

Former Names: S.S. Berlin (1925-1948), no name between 1948 and 1957 under ownership by the State Dept. of the Soviet Union.

Later Names: None.

Owners:
- 1925-1939: Norddeutscher Lloyd, Bremen, Germany.
- 1938-1939: Laid up at Bremen.
- 1939-January, 1945: Seized by the German Navy.
- January, 1945-1948: Abandoned after hit and sank by a mine.
- 1948-1949: Refloated by the Soviets.
- 1948-May, 1957: Soviet Union State Dept.
- May, 1957-August, 1986: Black Sea Shipping Company (BLASCO), Odessa, Soviet Union.
- August 31st, 1986: Sunk after collision with cargo ship.

History and Current Status: She was built as S.S. Berlin of the Norddeutscher Lloyd of Bremen, Germany, in 1925. She was used in the Bremen-New York route until 1938. She was laid up at Bremen between 1938 and 1939. Between 1939 and January 1945, she was used by the German Navy for various purposes, including two "Strength Through Joy" cruises, hospital ship duty in Norway and Germany and military accomodation ship duty in Germany. In January 31st, 1945, she got struck by a mine off Swinemunde, Germany (now Swinoujscie, Poland). While on tow to Kiel, she got struck by a second mine, that sank her in shallow water. She was abandoned until 1948, when she got transferred to the Soviet Union as a war reparation and refloated by them. She was rebuilt ar Warnow Shipyard at Warnemunde, Germany, between September 3rd 1951 and July 1954. In 1957, she got rechristened S.S. Admiral Nakhimov and ownership passed to BLASCO. Under the hammer and sickle of BLASCO, she served in the Black Sea on regular sailings between Odessa and Batum, with occasional crossings to Cuba. On August 31st, 1986, just after leaving Novorossiysk, bound for Sochi, she had a collision with the Soviet bulk carrier M.S. Piotr Vasyov (renamed M.S. Podolsk in 1986) and sank to a depth of 47 meters in 8 minutes, 2 miles from the shore. Of the 1234 passengers on board, 423 died.

(email all info about her to ata.bilgili@dartmouth.edu)

Notes: The gigantic! mystery ship: S.S. Admiral Nakhimov... There was always the name and the picture in my mind, but there was never a ship to see. Her name always made me imagine her bigger than she was: we do not see many small and short "Admiral"s out there after all, do we? Whenever her name came up in a conversation, I would travel back in time to the old days of Atlantic crossings, when ugly but elegant ships with straight and sharp bows would steam up to the New World, slicing through the frigid and untamed waters of the Northern Atlantic. I lived 6 years with the hope that I would bump into her on one of her rare crossings (to Cuba, I found out later on), but I could never realize that dream, mostly because I never knew when she was going to take some time off from her regular Black Sea scheduled sailings. When I found out that she sank in a very tragic way in Black Sea, I was sad. After all, it was one less dream in my life from then on.

The great big Admiral! I am glad you did not end up at a Far Eastern scrapper like many of your generation did, but you could have done this without taking 423 people down with you. In any case, peace in your final rest, to y'all!...

Links:

- A story about the search and rescue operations on the S.S. Admiral Nakhimov's wreck from RusSub.
- S.S. Admiral Nakhimov disaster from the Shipwrecks page of Rmstitanichistory.com.
- S.S. Admiral Nakhimov in the Germany-England section of The Blue Riband..
- S.S. Berlin from www.passagierdampfer.de.
- S.S. Berlin information from The ShipsList.
- S.S. Berlin from the deutsche-passagierschiffe.com.
- S.S. Berlin as a hospital ship, by FeldGrau.com.

Line Drawings: From the book "Soviet Bloc Merchant Ships" by Bruno Bock and Klaus Bock, 1981.

From the Feldgrau.com website, as S.S. Berlin, hospital ship.

Other Pictures: