Caledon Shipbuilding & Engineering Company
The shipbuilding company Caledon Shipbuilding & Engineering Company was based in Dundee on the east coast of Scotland . The shipyard was best known for the construction of high-quality cargo ships for liner shipping companies.
history
Early years
The Caledon shipyard, founded in 1866, was named after its first client, the Earl of Caledon. In 1896, the shipyard is the joint stock company The Caledon Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. , where the steel wholesaler Brown and Tawse Ltd. holds large stakes. The construction of liner cargo steamers began immediately, including the Californian , which was only twelve nautical miles away from the sinking Titanic , but did not come to her aid. But Caledon also built other steamships , fisheries protection ships, tankers and refrigerated ships . Passenger steamers were also built a little later.
World Wars and Depression
During the First World War , in addition to the regular cargo shipbuilding, a whole range of standard cargo ship types was built on behalf of the government. Specifically, there were two standard “A” types, three “D” types and six standard “C7” coastal freighters. At the end of the war, the shipyard moved to a new, larger location, the Stannergate Yard, east of the old Caledon shipyard.
In the 1920s, the Alfred Holt and Company, which also owns the Blue Funnel Line , took over 41% of the company's shares, which led the shipyard to concentrate more on the construction of liner cargo ships, of which they had already sold 35 for the Blue Funnel Built liner services and much more for other shipping companies. However, tankers, coastal freighters and ferries are still being built.
The global economic crisis of the 1930s ensured that the new buildings remained empty for over half a decade . Only the dock and repair business, mainly in the Dundee Harbor Trust dry dock, could be maintained. It was not until 1936 that the first new orders for a tugboat, a wine tanker and seven other ships filled the order book again. Further orders for tramp ships, necklaces and sugar carriers followed .
During the Second World War , the Caledon shipyard built frigates , corvettes , seven standard "B" tramp ships, four standard fast cargo liners , three fleet tankers and other civilian orders. In addition, over a thousand ships, including numerous destroyers and submarines , were repaired.
post war period
From 1948, public shares were issued.
In the 1950s, the focus was increasingly on the construction of combi ships , of which 54 units were produced between 1946 and 1970. In addition, tankers and smaller vehicles such as buoy layers , coastal steamers and inland vessels were also part of the shipyard's construction program.
In order to survive against the background of the changed shipbuilding market of the 1960s, the shipyard expanded its program with around 1,500 employees, for example to include tugs, ferries and oil disposal vehicles.
In 1965, the main shareholder, the Alfred Holt Group, was incorporated into Ocean transport and Trading Co., which sold the Caledon shipyard to Henry Robb Ltd from Leith in 1968 . The shipbuilding company was named Robb Caledon Shipbuilders Ltd. and from the late 1960s produced a number of RoRo ferries , as well as chemical tankers and cable layers.
From 1973, Robb Caledon built three newbuildings of the successful SD-14 ship type in Dundee under license from the Sunderland shipyard Austin & Pickersgill (A&P). Since the construction price demanded by A&P could not cover costs, no further licenses were acquired. At the end of the 1970s, no new construction contracts could be won. The last two newbuildings from Dundee in 1979 were the two minibulkers Koscierzyna and Bytom, built for Polish accounts .
The shipyard closed in 1981. The Caledon equipment piers were taken over by the Dundee Port Authority and used for cargo handling.