Lindenau Werft closure decided

Germany correspondent Tom Todd reports the closure is part of restructuring which includes the loss of up to 190 jobs at the three yards which make up German Naval Yards (GNY). They are Nobiskrug in Rendsburg on the Kiel Canal, Lindenau at the Kiel entrance to the canal and German Naval Yards in Kiel – once part of the giant Howaldtswerke Deutsche Werft (HDW).

GNY said it was implementing “a package of measures in order to concentrate on core business and ensure long-term ability to compete” in the naval and luxury private yacht building sectors.

Civilian repair business, currently the mainstay of Lindenau activity, is “no longer profitable because of competition from eastern Europe”, GNY said.

That came as a surprise since Lindenau has spoken of full repair docks of late. However that work is reportedly not economically viable to justify future investment in repair. GNY is also pulling out of “unprofitable” offshore platform construction. It will continue to repair naval ships and yachts.

GNY spokesman Heiko Landahl-Gette told The Motorship that “no concrete date has as yet been fixed” for the closure of commercial repair at Lindenau. He added however: “We expect all activity connected with current orders to be completed by the end of the year”.

Lindenau Werft, founded in 1905, has been active in newbuilding and repair over many years. It went insolvent in 2008 and was later absorbed into the current GNY. Before that it built some of Germany’s biggest and best-regarded specialised tankers. They included thirteen innovative 43,000dwt newbuilds for German Tanker Shipping.