The Bussard is a steamboat that was used as a buoy tender in the Bay of Kiel from 1906 to 1979 and has belonged to the Maritime Museum in Kiel since 1980.
The ship was commissioned on March 15, 1905 at the Meyer shipyard in Papenburg ( hull number 203) for 224,000 gold marks and put into service in 1906 for the Royal Hydraulic Engineering Inspectorate in Flensburg . Until 1919, the Bussard was stationed in Sonderburg, which was then part of the German Reich , and then continuously in Kiel. In addition to the main task of laying out, hauling in and repairing buoys in the Bay of Kiel, the Bussard was also regularly used to supply the lightship Fehmarnbelt and as a launch and target ship during the Kiel week used. The high operating costs led to the buoy laying vessel being decommissioned in 1979.
In July 1980, the Bussard was handed over to the Kiel Maritime Museum. However, there was a lack of money and personnel to operate the steam engine. It was not until 2001 that volunteer steamboat friends started to get the ship moving again. The boiler was approved by the TÜV one year later and after further work the main engine could be operated with steam again in May 2005. The association "Dampfer Bussard eV", founded in the same year, then took over the further repairs and the operation of the museum ship. On November 5, 2006 , 27 years after decommissioning, the Bussard successfully completed its first test drive. It is a traditional ship from the GSHWapproved and can take up to 50 day guests.
