The former Hadag passenger ferry “Jan Molsen” has been moored in Bremerhaven’s fishing port since the beginning of April.
The ship, which can carry up to 300 passengers, was taken out of active service by Hadag a few years ago and has now been transferred from Hamburg to the Weser alongside the tugboat “Schwartenbeck”.
The new owner is said to be Bremen-based Leviathan, a company founded by Karsten Schumacher that specializes in modern technologies for dismantling and recycling old ships. The Bremen office is still somewhat reticent about the exact next steps in the work on the “Jan Molsen”.
What is certain, however, is that the former passenger ferry will no longer be sailing and will probably leave its berth in Bremerhaven at the beginning of May for an as yet unknown destination. The company will only provide information on the next steps at a later date.
The “Jan Molsen”, originally 30.34 m long, was built in 1968 at the Mützelfeld shipyard in Cuxhaven with the construction number 174 as one of four ships in a class that were actually intended as fast ferries for the Landungsbrücken-Finkenwerder connection, among other things. The ship was named after the long-serving chairman of the shipping company at the beginning of the 20th century.
“Jan Molsen” was used on various routes
Over the course of more than 50 years of service, the ship was used on various Hadag routes in Hamburg. In 1976, the ship, together with its sister ship “Hans Albers”, was extended by a good six meters at the Theodor Buschmann shipyard in Hamburg and fitted with a larger upper deck saloon. This was then shortened again in 2007 at SSB Spezialschiffbau Oortkaten in Hamburg-Oortkaten in order to obtain more free deck space.
From 1998 to 2001, the “Jan Molsen” was then painted in blue as a floating work of art, with “fish” by ceramicist Hildburg Wittke decorating the ship. It was then given the faded yellow paint job with the advertising side lettering for the Disney musical “The Lion King” that still exists today. (CE)
