Major renovation of the steamboat Vyšehrad
In just a few weeks, at the beginning of the main cruise season, the historic steamboat Vyšehrad will present herself to the public in beauty unseen for many decades. One of the greatest jewels of the fleet of the Pražská paroplavební společnost (PPS) is, in these days, undergoing a demanding and sensitive renovation, under the supervision of heritage experts, to bring her back to the form in which she was launched onto the water exactly eighty years ago.
"The renovation of Vyšehrad is one of the most demanding projects of these years for us. PPS is financing it exclusively from its own resources, which are not unlimited. At the same time, we don't want this gem to disappear from the public eye for too long, so we have divided the actual rebuilding into two phases — for this year, we will manage to restore Vyšehrad's original outer appearance with a predominantly open main deck. By next cruise season, we then want to renovate the original aft deck salon as well," says Dušan Sahula, who is in charge of the rebuilding project. The experienced expert in waterway transport and former director of PPS has returned to steam navigation after a several-year break and has also taken on the role of company spokesperson.
Vyšehrad is already the fourth proud bearer of this traditional name of PPS steamboats and this year celebrates her eightieth birthday. She was launched in Ústí nad Labem on 1 May 1938 under the name Antonín Švehla together with her sister steamboat Dr. Edvard Beneš. The ceremonial act in the presence of thousands of people, including the then Minister of Industry, turned into a demonstration of national pride. Over the following decades, she changed her name several times and was rebuilt; in 1961, her appearance was significantly altered.
"The management of the Pražská paroplavební společnost honours with the utmost respect the traditions of the company, stretching back more than one and a half centuries. The only preserved historic steamboats in the Czech lands, Vyšehrad and Vltava, are an exceptionally important part of this tradition. We are convinced that the renovated Vyšehrad will earn the same admiration and affection from both the general and expert public as Vltava earned after her return to her original form," says the chairman of the board of the Pražská paroplavba, Captain Jan Hamza. It was Vltava who underwent a demanding renovation a few years ago and since then has been not only one of the most beautiful boats in central Europe and an ornament of the capital city of Prague, but as a result has also been receiving invitations to prestigious international steamboat parades.
Both Vyšehrad and Vltava have been protected historic monuments since 2013 on the initiative of PPS. All the more demanding, then, is the current renovation of the steamboat Vyšehrad, which is taking place at the PPS shipyard in Prague's Podbaba district. It was preceded by thorough preparation, including a long, almost detective search for source material that will allow the boat to be restored to her original appearance as faithfully as possible. Many technical and pictorial materials, on the basis of which the steamboat could be faithfully restored, were lost together with part of the PPS archives during the great flood at the turn of the millennium. In the end, the missing pieces of the puzzle were also filled in with the help of the public — following appeals from PPS, people sent or brought in historic photographs and other materials they had at home.
