Polskie line Oceaniczne
The Polish Ocean Lines SA , internationally primarily as Polish Ocean Lines (short POL known), is a Polish shipping company based in Gdynia .
history
POL was founded on January 2, 1951 after the nationalization and merger of the three shipping companies Żegluga Polska , Polbryt (a Polish-British joint venture) and Gdynia America Shipping Lines . Initially, 13 liner services were operated with a fleet of 43 ships with a total load capacity of over 200,000 tons. A number of European services were spun off into the newly founded shipping company Polska Żegluga Morska in the first ten years of existence .
From 1955 , the POL fleet was greatly expanded. A series of 19 Stocznia Gdańska B-54 ships , which for a long time formed the backbone of the fleet , played a special role . New services to Indonesia , Japan and the United States were established. For this purpose, a transatlantic service from Poland was started again in 1957 with the passenger ship Batory , which, unlike the previous line, led to Canada .
From 1960 the fleet grew to over 100 ships with a total load capacity of over 800,000 tons. Well-known series of this decade were the types B-55 , B-516 , B-445 and B-41 . The former flagship Batory was replaced in 1969 by the newer Stefan Batory acquired in the Netherlands .
In the 1970s , the state-run Polish merchant fleet was reorganized. The POL was expanded into a pure liner shipping company. To this end, it took over a large number of general cargo ships with a carrying capacity of around 100,000 tons from Polska Żegluga Morska. The latter was transformed into a tramp shipping company and in return received tankers and tramp ships from POL.
The POL took the container revolution into account in the 1970s by putting new semi and full container ships into service. In addition, Roro ships were built. The four ferries were outsourced to the Polish Baltic Shipping Company in Kołobrzeg in 1977 .
In total, in the 1970s, the fleet reached a level of 176 ships with about 1.2 million tons of deadweight, which carried over five million tons per year. During this time, more than 10,000 people were employed, around 80 percent of whom were seafarers.
At the beginning of the 1980s , other modern Conro and Roro ships, such as the Inowrocław, came into service, in the later 1980s, for example, a series of eight multi-purpose ships of the Warszawa type or three larger container ships of the Cegielski type were commissioned. However, under the influence of the martial law prevailing in Poland in the early 1980s , the shipping company had to contend with greater difficulties, which led to losses. In 1988, the POL also took the Stefan Batory out of service and stopped the transatlantic passenger service. At the end of the 1980s, the number of ships in operation had fallen relatively moderately to 97 units with around 914,000 tons of deadweight. In the following decade, however, the shipping company fell into a profound crisis, which was followed by protracted privatization.
Today, POL acts as a ship-booking carrier and also works as a ship supplier .
Web links
- Website of the shipping company (English, Polish)