Nobiskrug

Nobiskrug is a shipyard located on the Eider River in Rendsburg, Germany, specializing in building luxury yachts and the construction, modification and repair of yachts, naval and commercial vessels. It is now a subsidiary of Privinvest Holding. The shipyard currently employs some 400 people.

History

Motoryacht Mogambo

Nobiskrug was founded in 1905 by Otto Storck. The company changed to a limited liability company (GmbH), November 12, 1908, and a canal expansion work brought a steady stream of waterway construction vessels to the shipyard for repairs and refits. By the start of World War I, the shipyard had built a total of 70 vessels, mainly pontoons, barges and lighters.

During the war, the company built a number of auxiliary ships for the Kaiserliche Marine and started building minesweepers. They also launched its first two cargo steamboats in 1917 for German owners.

Germany’s defeat in World War I temporarily halted the country’s export shipbuilding industry, but the company switched production to deep-sea fishing steamers and later, again, cargo steamers. In 1930 the company scored a major coup with contracts for a series of three-mast schooner yachts.

During the period from 1935 to 1939, the shipyard supplied the German Ministry of Finance with three customs cruisers, the Nettelbeck, the York, and the Freiherr von Stein. Shortly before and during World War II, the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe placed orders with Nobiskrug for a range of auxiliary ships including several ocean-going tugs and tankers.

During the immediate post-war years, the company concentrated on ship conversions and repairs. From 1945 to 1955 advanced in building larger vessels.

In 1963 the shipyard delivered the then highly sophisticated navy training ship Deutschland. One year later, Nobiskrug built its first ferry, the Prins Bertil. Four more ferries were built up until 1968. This period also saw the completion of a number of conventional freighters and asphalt tankers as well as heavy goods and RoRo vessels.

Motoryacht Tatoosh

The early 1980s saw the construction of the research vessel Polarstern, and the diving support vessels Seabex One and Seaway Condor. In the mid-1980s the fortunes of the shipyard took a turn for the worse, leading ultimately to the verge of financial collapse in 1986.

Under these difficult circumstances, the yard lengthened the ocean cruise liner MS Berlin operated by Peter Deilmann Cruises. This ship is known to German TV viewers as cruise line in the German version of the Love Boat. The successful completion of this project was a sign of better things to come.

Nobiskrug was acquired in 1987 by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft and the shipyard was modernized into a compact shipyard, its maritime division specialising exclusively in repairs and conversions. Staffing levels were reduced dramatically, from more than 1,200 at the start of the 1980s to approximately 400.

In 1997 the shipyard supplied the forward half of the passenger ship MS Deutschland and then began work on the mega-yacht Tatoosh, which was completed in the summer of 2000. In the past decade Nobiskrug delivered custom-made superyachts like Triple Seven, Siren, Sycara V, Mogambo, Flying Fox and Odessa II amongst them several award winners.

Today Nobiskrug is part of the Privinvest Holding and its focus is the construction and conversion of mega-yachts.

Sailing ship Marjorie built in 1930

In 2015 Nobiskrug launched A, the largest sailing yacht ever built.^[1] Whilst bunkering fuel in Gibraltar on February 15, 2017, the yacht was impounded for six days on the claims of overdue installments to Nobiskrug and its subcontractors.^[2] Previously, over a period of two months in 2016, the Environmental Investigation Agency had tracked illegally sourced shipments of teak logged in Myanmar to Nobiskrug's deepwater building facility at the German Naval Yards in Kiel where she had been built.^[3] On March 14, 2017, after the yacht had exited German waters, the public prosecutor of Kiel warranted a search of the shipyard that confirmed the presence of illegal timber samples. Subsequently Nobiskrug confirmed to the prosecutor that the teak had been used on the S/Y A.^[4]

Yachts

• Tatoosh (2000)
• Triple Seven (2006)
• Siren (2008)
• Jamaica Bay (2010)
• Sycara V (2010)
• Sapphire (2011)
• Mogambo (2012)
• Flying Fox (2012)
• Odessa II (2013)
• Sailing Yacht A (2017)^[5]

References

External links

• Homepage of Nobiskrug
• Yachts build by Nobiskrug - SYT