Germany: Lloyd Werft Finishes Year with Fully Booked Shipyard

The winter rush on docks and berths at Lloyd Werft Bremerhaven is securing full employment for the yard as the year draws to a close. Mainly cruise liners are calling for repair, maintenance and conversion – old customers, but also some new ones with demanding conversion demands like those on the cruise ship MS “Minerva” or the offshore dock ship “OIG Giant II”.

Lloyd Werft Managing Director Rüdiger Pallentin is delighted with the good order situation, which challenges the know-how and expertise of the yard at the end of a year which has been difficult for German shipyards.

“German shipbuilding can unfortunately not share in the successes reported by many other economic sectors“, says Rüdiger Pallentin. “Orders are few and far between. It is against this background that we have also used 2011 to re-adjust important segments of our company, to concentrate on our hub competences and to move into the New Year full of expectation“.

With new strong and committed partners at its side, the management of Lloyd Werft wants to be better represented on the global market and to this end has partially re-organised its worldwide network of representatives. The continuation of the yard’s own modernisation efforts and the strategic concentration of all business sectors in Lloyd Werft’s new Kaiserhafen Centre are also part of this spectrum of future-oriented activities.

“We are a company that can look back on 154 years of experience in building special ships“, Pallentin comments. “Our orientation however is the future, which we move towards with the creativity, knowledge and deadline reliability which our customers worldwide have come to expect of us and which is embodied in the name Lloyd Werft.”

Anyone looking at the work schedule for the yard’s three docks and its berths will also see that cruise shipping companies in particular feel quite at home in the hands of the traditional old Bremerhaven shipyard. Now back in service is one of the classical liners – the 22,080 GT, 176.28 metre long “Marco Polo”- built in 1965 in Wismar. She made a technical stopover at Lloyd Werft to have her crankshaft plant checked out. Also back at sea meanwhile is Fred Olsen Cruises’ 28,613 GT “Black Watch”, now 39 years old. That 205.46 metre-long ship is a customer the yard has long been keen to acquire. Repair, maintenance and conversion were on the work schedule for the former “Royal Viking Star”, which Lloyd Werft lengthened in 1984.

Last May the shipyard converted the former P&O liner “Artemis” into the new Phoenix flag ship “Artania” and that Bonn shipping company has now sent its two other cruise ships to Lloyd Werft. “I am especially pleased about this“, says Pallentin “because we appear to have succeeded in reviving a good old customer relationship.”

The 205.46 metre long, 25,518 GT MS “Albatros” will be in the Kaiserdock II for 17 days between November 30th and December 17th. She will be fitted with a new bulbous bow to reduce her fuel consumption before leaving for her traditional world cruise. The “Albatros” is well known to Lloyd Werft. In 1983, when she was still called the “Royal Viking Sea”, she was lengthened by 28 metres at the yard. This time, alongside the installation of the bulbous bow, a range of repair and maintenance work is scheduled in the time up to December 17th.

Lloyd Werft has just 14 days between December 4th and 17th to prepare the second Phoenix ship, the 192.5 metre-long “Amadea” of 28,856 GT, for her latest world cruise. The schedule includes the removal and re-installation of her stabilisers for work in the Lloyd workshop as well as the overhaul of her crankshaft plant and steel and coating work.

Considerably more extensive is the work on board the 135.10 metre-long, 12,449 GT “Minerva”, built at the T. Mariotti Shipyard in Genoa in 1996. The former “Alexander von Humboldt”, “Explorer II” and “Saga Pearl” arrives at Lloyd Werft on December 7th for 83 days and will change her appearance internally as well as externally. She resumes service out of Southampton on the 27th of February 2012 as an adventure ship for the English travel agency All Leisure. The Arctica Adventure Cruise & Shipping Ltd is introducing a new class of cruising to the UK market with “Minerva” and is investing in greater comfort and technology.

To save fuel costs, the “Minerva” is getting a new double crankshaft plant including propellers during her stay in the Kaiserdock I. This change is required in order to allow the installation of a Promas integrated propeller and rudder system developed by Rolls Royce. It is installed between the double propeller and the rudder blades and is designed to optimise water flow patterns below the surface. In addition this expedition cruise ship, which is laid out for 382 passengers, is getting a new Voith stern thruster to improve her manoeuvrability in confined waters. The yard is concentrating on changes above the surface but general maintenance and repair work is also being carried out on the hull below the water-line.

Deck 9 on “Minerva” is being made bigger and an aluminium superstructure is being added. Deck 8 is also being widened or modified to allow for 20 additional suites with balconies. A further 12 cabins are also being fitted with balconies. Still on Deck 8, Lloyd Werft shipbuilders also have some work to do in the stern where the deck is being lengthened to offer more space for passengers.

The remainder of the work is devoted to the comfort of future “Minerva” passengers. The bathrooms in 150 standard cabins are being renovated and six cabins on Deck 5 are giving way to a new Beauty Centre and Fitness Area. An on-board sauna is being reconstructed to create more space in the popular Shackleton Bar.

While this conversion work is taking place, a completely different type of vessel is due to make fast at the yard.

Lloyd Werft expects this vessel, the first wind energy installation ship for RWE, to arrive in Bremerhaven in January after a long sea journey from South Korea. The “Victoria Mathias” is a self-propelled 100 x 40 metre offshore platform and Lloyd Werft will equip her with installations to enable her to carry out work in the RWE offshore wind farm “Nordsee Ost” off Helgoland.

“This is an interesting contract“, says Rüdiger Pallentin, “because it concerns a future business sector for Lloyd Werft“. The conversion of the 17,341 GT heavy-lift dock ship newbuilding “Combi Dock IV” also fits this future sector profile. She was built by Lloyd Werft as recently as 2010 and converted into the offshore support ship “OIG Giant II” in September/October this year for Bremen shipowner Harren & Partner.

[mappress]

Shipbuilding Tribune Staff, December 6, 2011; Image: lloydwerft