I chanced upon the venerable Stettin, a lovely icebreaker dating from 1933 this weekend. Well, in…read moretruth, I'd seen her before on a many a visit to the beach, but had passed by the delights of Oevelgoenne museum. Anyway, if you've got 2EUR handy, and you get there before 1800, she is well worth a look! The tour isn't guided, so you are free to clamber around most of the ship, including into the engine room! It houses a beautiful 5-cylinder steam engine, which develops around 2200hp at the cylinders. The pistons and con-rods are of an epic size, hence the rather amusing tooling which is also neatly stacked nearby for maintenance. You can actually fit your head into a few of the spanners.
Up on deck, she looks fairly unremarkable, until you get onto the bridge. Interestingly, it contains rather more modern equipment than downstairs, which betrays the fact she saw active service from 1933 all the way up to 2008, a period in which she also saw action during the capture of Copenhagen.
All in all, well worth the admission, and one of the highlights of my weekend!
