Germans consolidate Repair
There is news this Spring of a further consolidation in the ship repair and maintenance sector in north Germany, linking the Weser and Elbe Estuaries and involving prominent shipyards in the ports of Bremerhaven and Cuxhaven, writes Tom Todd.
Continuing its expansion in the repair sector, BREDO in Bremerhaven is now operating as BREDO DRY DOCKS and managing the repair project business of the associated German Dry Docks (GDD) Group, also in Bremerhaven.
BREDO is concentrating on docking and repair projects at two locations in the port while directing all the operations from the small Mützelfeldtwerft in Cuxhaven. GDD meanwhile is to focus on “special and large-scale projects as well as public-sector contracts” in Bremerhaven.
A year ago GDD, BREDO and Mützelfeldtwerft formed a shipyard alliance in which they described cross-site dock planning as “a key element of our strategy”. The move came after it was revealed that each of the yards had on occasions had to turn away orders in the past because of full docks. Now they say: “Together we are able to offer a higher dock capacity and react directly to fluctuating workloads at the sites” while responding to customer demands “in a highly flexible and cost-efficient manner”.
GDD operates 5 docks in the Kaiserhafen in Bremerhaven while BREDO operates four in the port’s Fischereihafen in Bremerhaven. Mützelfeldtwerft operates 1 Dock in Cuxhaven’s Amerikahafen, east on the Elbe Estuary .
The co-operation appears to be working as the yards involved go into Spring. Among recent callers at BREDO has been the 9,821dwt, multi-purpose cargo ship BBC Skysails, which was in the news a decade ago as the pioneer of the ‘windsail’ wind energy fuel conservation system. The yard handled maintenance and class work on the ship, which still carries its distinctive wind kite start and landing gear.
At GDD, the two month lengthening of TT Line’s Baltic RoPax ferry Peter Pan by 30m to 220m was completed. A new 55 ton flow-optimised bulbous bow with better fuel saving features and pre-manufactured on site by Weser Stahlbau, was also positioned and installed using a track system.
GDD neighbour Lloyd Werft Bremerhaven (LWB) is apparently not involved in the latest repair consolidation. It recently overhauled the two MAN 9L32/40 CD 9 cylinder diesels on the dockship Combi Dock 1. LWB built the 17,341gt ship ten years ago on a Polish hull as the first in a series of four multi-functional dock ships. It was in the news last year when it carried the Flying P sailship Peking across the Atlantic for restoration in Germany.
