The Bayerische Seenschifffahrt GmbH, or Bavarian Lakes Shipping Company, is a company that operates shipping services on several lakes in the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 state of Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

. Services operate on the Königssee

Königssee

The Königssee is a lake located in the extreme southeast Berchtesgadener Land district of the German state of Bavaria, near the border with Austria...

, the Starnberger See

Lake Starnberg

Lake Starnberg , 25 kilometers southwest of Munich in southern Bavaria, is Germany's fifth largest freshwater lake and, due to its large average depth, the second richest in water...

, the Ammersee

Ammersee

Ammersee is a lake in Upper Bavaria, Germany located southwest of Munich between the towns of Herrsching and Dießen am Ammersee. With a surface area of approximately , it is the sixth largest lake in Germany. The lake is located at an elevation of , and has a maximum depth of . Like other Bavarian...

 and the Tegernsee

Tegernsee (lake)

The Tegernsee is a lake in the Bavarian Alps in southern Germany. The lake is the centre of a popular recreation area south-east of Munich. Resorts on the lake include the eponymous Tegernsee, as well as Bad Wiessee, Kreuth, Gmund, and Rottach-Egern....

.

The Bayerische Seenschifffahrt company was created in 1997, to operate services on the four lakes that were previously operated directly by the Bavarian state government. These services date back to 1851 (on the Starnberger See), 1879 (on the Ammersee), 1894 (on the Tegernsee) and 1909 (on the Königssee). The company is owned by the state of Bavaria, and has some 160 employees.

The company operates 34 vessels of a variety of types. On the Ammersee it operates a fleet of motor ship

Motor ship

A motor ship or motor vessel is a ship propelled by an internal combustion engine, usually a diesel engine. The name of motor ships are often prefixed with MS, M/S, MV or M/V.- See also :...

s, including both propeller-driven

Propeller

A propeller is a type of fan that transmits power by converting rotational motion into thrust. A pressure difference is produced between the forward and rear surfaces of the airfoil-shaped blade, and a fluid is accelerated behind the blade. Propeller dynamics can be modeled by both Bernoulli's...

 and paddle-driven

Paddle steamer

A paddle steamer is a steamship or riverboat, powered by a steam engine, using paddle wheels to propel it through the water. In antiquity, Paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were wheelers driven by animals or humans...

 vessels. One of the latter, the Diessen, dates back to 1908 and was originally steam powered

Steam engine

A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...

. On the Starnberger See and Tegernsee conventional propeller-driven motor vessels are operated. On the environmentally sensitive Königssee only battery-electric launches

Electric boat

While a significant majority of water vessels are powered by diesel engines, with sail power and gasoline engines also remaining popular, boats powered by electricity have been used for over 120 years. Electric boats were very popular from the 1880s until the 1920s, when the internal combustion...

 are permitted, and a fleet of 18 such launches are operated.

Similar passenger services on the Chiemsee

Chiemsee

Chiemsee is a freshwater lake in Bavaria, Germany, between Rosenheim, Germany, and Salzburg, Austria. It is often called the Bavarian Sea. The rivers Tiroler Achen and Prien flow into the lake; the river Alz, out of it...

, Bavaria's largest internal lake, are operated by the private sector

Private sector

In economics, the private sector is that part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is run by private individuals or groups, usually as a means of enterprise for profit, and is not controlled by the state...

 Chiemsee Schifffahrt company. The international Lake Constance White Fleet operates ferry and cruise services on Lake Constance

Lake Constance

Lake Constance is a lake on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps, and consists of three bodies of water: the Obersee , the Untersee , and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, called the Seerhein.The lake is situated in Germany, Switzerland and Austria near the Alps...

, on which Bavaria has a shore.

External links

• Official website of the Bayerische Seenschifffahrt GmbH (in German and English)