Report: Nostalgia at the foot of the Jura - Switzerland's oldest steamboat

• Read the second part of the report here: Nostalgia at the foot of the Jura: The "Isle of Jura" - a home-made steam engine

The smell of wood fire fills the air. Apart from the quiet pounding of the historic steam engine, the "St. Urs" glides silently through the turquoise-green waters of the Aare. It is a scorching hot July day in Solothurn. In the water and on the banks, swimmers and water sports enthusiasts are bustling about in search of a cool dip. On board Switzerland's oldest steamboat, it's a little warmer thanks to the boiler. A group of young people drift past on their floating island and use hand signals to ask the captain to let off some steam.

Thomas Schmid does them a favour. Actually, every pull on the rope is "lost energy", but the cheers from the onlookers on the shore when the distinctive whistle sounds are worth it to him and he is in no hurry. For steamboat drivers, the journey is the destination. During a short break at the town's jetty, two young men come to the boat with their foil boards under their arms and take an interested look at the machine. The fact that young people are also fascinated by the charming old-timer with the chimney and the simple, environmentally friendly technology visibly fills Schmid with pride.

The fascination of the steam engine

The retired doctor and his wife Antoinette, known as "Mimi", are passionate steamboat drivers and owners of the steamboat "St. Urs", which has been restored down to the smallest detail, with its elegant royal blue hull and golden decorations on the bow. The sight of the lovingly maintained, gleaming mechanism that once triggered the industrial revolution takes you back to times long past.

Schmid throws a few wood briquettes into the boiler and a few seconds later the temperature display rises to 350 degrees. The pressure rises to seven bar and the boat immediately speeds up.

The steam from the boiler reaches the engine via a supply line, where it drives the piston, shaft and propeller. The difference to the diesel engine is that there is no gearbox. Boat steam engines are usually connected directly to the propeller shaft via a coupling. The used steam is condensed into water and then fed back into the boiler.

To fit under the sometimes low bridges in the centre of Solothurn, Schmid has to lay the chimney. His wife Mimi is at the helm. When her husband came up with the idea of buying a steamboat almost 40 years ago, she was immediately on board. Thomas Schmid has always been fascinated by steam engine technology. Like many of his steamboat colleagues, he came to steamboats via locomotives and model making. "We've always travelled a lot on the water. The whole family sails and we also have a motorboat on Lake Biel. The steam railway was another hobby of mine. In 1985, we went to a trade fair at the Technorama in Winterthur. That's where I first came into contact with the German Steamboat Association. And it was there that I had the idea of combining the two hobbies. But actually I just wanted to build a model steamboat."

Back to the roots: Back on their home waters after 90 years

Together with his brother, Schmid pored over historical records in search of a steamboat that actually once travelled the waters of the Jura. This is how they came across the "St. Urs". "We found in the literature that the ship had been owned by a furniture company on Lake Sarnen since 1903. We called and asked if we could have a look at it because we wanted to build a model of it. But when we stood in front of it, we realised that we had to have the original." However, it was several years before the "St. Urs" was allowed to return to its home waters at the foot of the Jura Mountains. This was because the family business initially refused to sell.

The furniture manufacturer Läubli had converted the boat into an electric boat after purchasing it. His factory was equipped with a hydroelectric power station, whose night-time electricity was used for the converted electric boat. For several years, the boat, which had since been renamed "Volta", chauffeured factory workers and goods across Lake Sarnen until traffic shifted to the increasingly well-developed roads. The boat was rebuilt several times over the course of the century. For over 90 years, there was no steam engine on board - until Thomas Schmid was finally able to buy it in the early 1990s and have it restored to its original condition at the shipyard of the Lake Lucerne Navigation Company (SGV).

Renaissance of the Solothurn steamboat enthusiasts

But the history of the "St. Urs" goes back even further. In 1889, the wealthy city councillor Ferdinand von Sury founded the Solothurn Steamboat Club (SDBC) to revive navigation on the River Aare after it had come to a standstill due to competition from the railway. He ordered a small steamboat for 14 people from Dampfboot & Maschinenfabrik R. Holtz in Hamburg-Harburg, also known as Schlosswerft, and hired a stoker. Born in Hamburg, she arrived in Solothurn on 4 July 1889 and was welcomed by the press as "a nice little boat in the shape of a sloop". She is named after the patron saint of the town, St Ursus of Solothurn.

However, the club only had a handful of members and survived for just five years. In 1894, the "St. Urs" was sold again and moved to central Switzerland, where it was used as a tugboat in a quarry for a few years before being bought by the aforementioned furniture manufacturer in 1903 and converted into an electric boat. 100 years later, the Solothurn Steamboat Club was revived by Schmid and friends. With four members, the club is just as small today as it was back then. But thanks to it, the "St. Urs" is once again sailing with the SDBC pennant on its home river, the Aare.

Treasure in a shoebox

But before that could happen, a new steam engine was needed. Schmid found what he was looking for in England, the motherland of steam engines. The steam engine on board the "St Urs" dates back to 1898 and comes from the Isle of Wight. It was originally used in the dinghy of a yacht. At the end of the 1940s, the engine was rediscovered in a shed and installed in a Thames ship, where it remained in service until the 1990s, when Schmid brought it to Switzerland to breathe new life into his "St. Urs".

"One of the descendants of the von Sury councillor who commissioned the 'St. Urs' was a schoolmate of mine," reports Schmid. "One day, his mother found a shoebox full of old photos and documents relating to the boat in the attic." A real goldmine for Schmid: using the historical pictures and the construction plan, they were able to reconstruct the original condition down to the smallest detail.

Schmid carefully pours oil into the machine with a golden jug. It takes about ten kilograms of wood per hour, he explains. A small bucket is enough for a leisurely trip on the Aare. But every now and then they travel up the Aare to anchor with their steamboat friends on Lake Biel, which requires a little more wood on the narrow deck.

• Read the second part of the report here: Nostalgia at the foot of the Jura: The "Isle of Jura" - a home-made steam engine