Last trip for U 17 from Kiel through the Kiel Canal to the Technik Museum Sinsheim Speyer

Last trip for U 17 from Kiel through the Kiel Canal via Rotterdam and the Rhine to the Technik Museum Sinsheim Speyer.

This is where the long journey for the submarine U 17 starts in Kiel on April 29, 2023. It started early on Saturday morning at around 6 a.m., on a pontoon, pulled by the two tugboats Teddy and Noorcat. Because the submarine U 17 (ship identification S 196) of the class 206 A was already decommissioned in 2006 by the German Navy. And in the past few weeks, among other things, all weapon systems have been removed in the Kiel shipyard. U 17 could no longer drive under its own power and therefore had to be transported on a pontoon.

Numerous spectators along the Kiel Canal

Despite the early hour, there were numerous spectators at the Kiel Canal who didn’t want to miss the last U 17 trip. After a short trip from the east bank of Kiel on the Kiel Fjord to the canal lock in Holtenau, the submarine was locked in the Kiel Canal. At around 8 a.m. the lock gate opened and U 17 could begin the journey through the Kiel Canal to Brunsbüttel. Here in Kiel you could follow the last trip of U 17 from Kiel and through the canal from numerous locations, including in the Wik when entering the lock chamber of the Kiel Canal, from the landing stage of the Adler I canal ferry when leaving the lock chamber , from three canal bridges (Olympiabrücke, Prinz-Heinrich-Brücke and Alte Levensauer Hochbrücke) as well as in the further course of the transport from many other points along the Kiel Canal. More photos from April 29, 2023: Picture gallery U 17 in the Kiel Canal and the Kiel Fjord (Shipspottingmag.com)

Incidentally, U 17 was built by HDW in Kiel in the 1970s. U 17 was launched in October 1972 and commissioned in November 1973. Until 2006, the home port of submarine U 17 was the 3rd Submarine Squadron of the German Navy in Eckernförde.

Timetable of the U 17 from Kiel to the Sinsheim Speyer Museum of Technology

The U 17 is expected to arrive at the Technology Museum in Speyer at the end of May, i.e. in about a month. There, further preparations are made for later road transport to Sinsheim. Where U 17 will be presented to museum visitors in future. The Technik Museum Speyer also houses the German Navy’s submarine U 9.

Submarines in the Kiel Canal

Fans of submarines got their money’s worth these days. Because normally you rarely see a submarine in the Kiel Canal. But not only U 17 was on the move in the Kiel Canal at the end of April. Two days earlier, the submarine RSS Impeccable had navigated the canal from Kiel to Rendsburg. Yesterday, Friday afternoon, the submarine RSS Impeccable, which is around 70 meters long, returned from Rendsburg through the canal to the TKMS shipyard in Kiel.

Videos U 17 in the Kiel Canal