Length 63 m | Beam 13 m | |
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The Blümlisalp is a paddle wheel steamship built in 1906, used in regular passenger service on Lake Thun. She is named after the Blüemlisalp mountain massif in the Bernese Oberland and carries 800 passengers.
The saloon steamer was ordered in 1905 by the Oberländische Dampfschifffahrts-Gesellschaft at the firm Escher, Wyss & Co. in Zurich, one of the foremost builders of locomotives and industrial machinery at the time. Ordered at a price of 375'000 Swiss francs, the Blümlisalp was destined to overpass all other ships on Lake Thun and Lake Brienz in terms of size, power and elegance. Construction of the ship required some preparations, among them building a covered, 62 meters long shipyard and a 132 meters long launching facility, which together cost 165'000 francs. The ship has a main deck length of 60.45 meters, a width of 13.15 meters, and a draft of 1.57 meters when fully loaded and carrying seven tons of coal.
On August 1, 1971 the Blümlisalp was put out of service and was slated to be scrapped. For about twenty years, the ship remained moored in the delta of the Kander river. A cooperative called "Vaporama" undertook a revision of the ship, and after more than two years of repairs and overhaul, the second maiden voyage took place on May 22, 1992. Ever since, the Blümlisalp is serving in scheduled passenger traffic between April and October.