Rickmers Reederei
| Rickmers Reederei GmbH & Cie. KG | |
| |
| Headquarters | Hamburg, Germany |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1834 |
| Defunct | 2018 |
| Succeeded by | Zeaborn Ship Management |
| Website | https://rickmers.com (site is dead) |
Rickmers Reederei GmbH & Cie. KG was a Hamburg, Germany-based international provider of maritime freight transportation, a supplier of maritime equipment, and the main focus of this article, large pneumatic sirens.
History
Rickmers Reederei was founded in 1834 by Rickmer Clasen Rickmers in Bremerhaven, starting out as Rickmers Werft. The company mainly focused on shipbuilding and would see moderate success. In 1918, the shipyard and the shipping company were financially separated. The company was shut down in 1924 as part of the German shipping crisis and did not reopen until 1937. They would take repair orders from the United States Navy in the years following World War II.
As an attempt to capitalize on the West German government's need for air raid sirens to warn the public of potential air raids from the Eastern Bloc, they would introduce the "Rohrturmanlage" siren in 1965, which was heavily reminiscent of Pintsch Bamag's Anlage 1 and Anlage 2. As the company seemed to be falling on hard times, the siren venture was a way to rake in income to keep itself afloat.
The Rohrturmanlage wouldn't see the success that Rickmers wanted it to, with only 5 units being installed. The siren would likely be discontinued in 1967, and Rickmers would disappear from the siren business as soon as it entered. The company would continue to suffer economically in the following years, being acquired by the Zeaborn Group in 2017 after filing for bankruptcy. In 2018, the Rickmers Group and E.R. Schiffarht, another Zeaborn-owned company, would merge and form Zeaborn Ship Management.
Products
Rohrturmanlage
The Rohrturmanlage was the only siren produced by Rickmers. Introduced in 1965 to compete with HÖRMANN's HLS F71, the Rohrturmanlage's top is conical in shape, while the rest of the siren is cylindrical. It has 4 holes on each side, with these essentially being horns for sound to pass through. The siren also has what looks to be a platform with railings on top of it. The siren's engine and compressor are all housed at ground level in a small room located at the base of the siren's mast. The siren's air tank is located below the engine room and can hold 7100 liters.
The Rohrturmanlage uses a JLO DL660 engine and an FMA-Pokorny Robot VZ 5 compressor. The engine room and air tank are welded together and form a single unit. The compressed air tank could be reached through a hatch on the engine room's floor. All of the existing unit's components were replaced with HLS F71 parts during installation.
The Rohrturmanlage didn't sell well at all, with only 5 units being installed, with 2 being located in Rüsselsheim and 3 in Darmstadt. The final nail in the coffin was the Federal Office for Civil Protection choosing HÖRMANN to supply them with a nationwide warning system, leading to Rickmers discontinuing the Rohrturmanlage. In the 1990s, the 3 units located in Darmstadt were supplemented with HLS 373 and HLS 381 parts and have HLS 373 heads on top of them.