Secure repair future tipped for Lindenau

ADM said the focus of Lindenau activity in future would be on merchant and local authority vessels and workboats as well as on naval ships. It denied the facility would become a yacht refit yard.

Denise Hein, marketing manager of Nobiskrug Shipyard in Rendsburg, which now manages the ADM Germany group, told this correspondent that Lindenau had been “very well occupied” in the first two months of the new year, since it was taken over by ADM.

Group refit & repair manager Gerd Wittorf said current orders provided work “well into 2016”. The Lindenau acquisition would “strengthen repair and refit capacities with a strong focus on the maintenance programmes of the German Navy”, he added.

Nobiskrug also said because the group’s three yards, which also include ADM Kiel, were close together “we will be able to act in a flexible and integrated manner and offer a highly competitive and powerful set-up” in a location that was “ideal”.

The takeover came after three difficult years of insolvency for Lindenau. Despite that, its former managers have kept the yard afloat with repair work. Its incorporation now into ADM will hopefully make it more stable and secure and better able to acquire new work.

Denise Hein reported a string of smaller vessels already calling this year for repair or overhaul and predicted that more will come. Among the first ships were the 65.9m long police patrol ship Eschwege and the historic 51.6m long paddle steamer Freya, now over 100 years old. They both occupied Lindenau’s 165m long Dock 11, which is well suited for such work and also for naval and merchant ship conversion.

Among other callers this year were three tugs which belong to Kiel tug and ferry concern SFK. They were the 26.5m Holtenau for general repair, the 32m Lindenau-built Kiel, for propulsion plant repairs, and the 29.9m Buelk, as well as the 44m workboat Rochen. A regular visitor was the 50.2m sailship Roald Amundsen.

Bigger merchant ships have also been among recent customers to Lindenau, such as the 127.6m, 660 teu container ship Norwave and the 177.7m tanker Seahawk. The 74m luxury yacht Plan B, completed just last year by ADM-Kiel and Nobiskrug, was also docked at Lindenau and was reported staying there until spring for inspection.

However. Denise Hein rejected speculation that Lindenau might become just a docking facility for yacht specialist Nobiskrug. She said Lindenau dock capacity “will not be blocked by yacht refits” for Nobiskrug but acknowledged that yacht work could be carried out there if capacity was available.

By Tom Todd