The order is a technological breakthrough for Neptun
In more good news for the German shipbuilding industry, Neptun Werft in Rostock-Warnemuende has beaten off stiff international competition to win a Government order worth 124.4 million for a new research ship.
Tom Todd writes: The Baltic coast yard, a subsidiary of cruise ship builder Meyer Werft in Papenburg, will build a same-name replacement for the research ship Sonne, one of the biggest and most efficient ships in the German research fleet. Built in 1969 for fisheries work and converted for research in 1977, the 97.6m veteran is due to leave service in 2015.
The newbuilding will reportedly be completed in 2013 with the Indian and Pacific oceans her main areas of service and with Wilhelmshaven as her home port. Berlin will pay 90% of the building cost and the German coastal states the remaining 10%.
The order is a technological breakthrough for Neptun, once Germany’s greatest shipyard. It has specialised in inland cruise ships of late, and in May booked its 16th such newbuilding and secured options for two more.
The research ship order has actually gone to a new deep-sea research firm called the Tiefseeforschungsgesellschaft, which is made up of Meyer Werft and the shipping company RF Forschungsschiffahrt in Bremen. RF operates the existing Sonne and a fleet of other national research ships.
No dimensions or technical details of the new ship have been revealed so far and Meyer Werft’s Guenther Kolbe told The Motorship Monday they would not be made known before August. Berlin Research Minister Annette Schaven said however the new Sonne would be “one of the most modern marine working platforms in the world”.
The project is part of the current renewal of the German research ship fleet and would be a big boost for the shipbuilding industry as well as secure jobs in the troubled sector and in associated supply firms, she added.
Source: Motorship
