Shipping company Harmstorf & Co.
The shipping company Harmstorf & Co. was formed by Alnwick Harmstorf. It emerged from 1937 from the salvage shipping company founded by his father Friedrich Matthias Harmstorf around 1860.
Prehistory and foundation
The trained shipbuilder and diver Friedrich Matthias Harmstorf founded a salvage shipping company in 1860. In 1861 the iron steamer Taucher was delivered as a salvage ship from the Reiherstieg shipyard . Harmstorf built the second salvage ship Taucher II at his own shipyard in Blankenese. The son Alnwick, who had been trained as a diver, learned the profession of shipbuilder at HC Stülcken Sohn , then studied shipbuilding and after graduating worked at Schichau in Königsberg, Nobiskrug , the Norderwerft and the naval shipyard.
In 1937 Alnwick Harmstorf took over the salvage shipping company from his father, which was initially mainly occupied with diving orders. After the war, the salvage jobs predominated, which led to the establishment of a merchant shipping company, among other things.
post war period
As the first ship of the shipping company, which traded as Alnwick Harmstorf, Reederei und Bergungsgesellschaft, the former Kitzeberg steamer, built in 1906 near Wichhorst in Hamburg, was taken over. It belonged to Alnwick Harmstorf until 1944. The following ships, the Lühesand ex. Marianne came to the shipping company as wrecks . The Lühesand was lifted in 1948 by Harmstorf in the mouth of the Lühes and rebuilt and modernized by the Renck shipyard in Harburg and left for the first voyage in the new ship's life in August 1950. The shipping company's second ship, the Krautsand , was created in 1951 from a tanker that sank in the port of Hamburg, and the third ship, the Rotersand , was created from a French freighter.
In 1953 Alnwick Harmstorf was the first shipyard to take over the Schlichting shipyard in Travemünde, after having previously had to register a settlement in the same year. The Schlichting shipyard was converted to steel shipbuilding, enlarged to almost 140,000 square meters and modernized. In 1956 the Juelssand tanker, built by the Schlichting shipyard and measured at 499 GRT, was the seventh ship to join the shipping company. The ship was delivered to a Hamburg tanker shipping company in 1955. Harmstorf became a correspondent owner in 1956. The following four new construction ships, small motor tankers, also came mainly from the Schlichting shipyard.
AF Harmstorf & Co.
Since 1959 the shipping company has operated as AF Harmstorf & Co. The refrigerated motor ship Güldensand , which was delivered by the Schlichting shipyard to the shipping company in 1960 and measured around 1500 GRT , was the shipping company's 15th ship and the first refrigerated ship. Harmstorf continued to freight it even after it was sold. With the Rungholtsand , Medemsand and Wittsand, three more refrigerated vessels of this size from the Schlichting shipyard followed.
The tanker Tormes , delivered in 1957 from the Nagoya Zosen shipyard (Japan) to the Norwegian shipping company Jabsen in Bergen, was sold to the Hamburg-based Trans Oel Gesellschaft für Öltransporte & Handel in 1965 and renamed Bomin . AF Harmstorf acted as correspondent owner for this ship and this tanker (ship no. 21) was the largest ship of the shipping company.
The sister ships Pagensand (2), Fährmannsand and Lühesand with 1,733 GRT and around 1,100 tdw were delivered to the shipping company in 1967 as reefer ships. In doing so, Harmstorf strengthened the third branch of employment alongside freight and tanker shipping and became involved in the highly specialized refrigerated shipping industry.
Hanseatic Shipping Company Ltd.
In 1971 von Harmstorf founded the Hanseatic Shipping Company Ltd. together with other Hamburg shipping companies. founded to offer the management of own and third-party ships as a service.
The refrigerated motor ship Grootsand with around 1,600 GRT was the shipping company's 27th ship and was delivered in 1978 by the Büsum shipyard . Alnwick Harmstorf took over the Büsumer shipyard W. & E. Sielaff on October 1, 1963 and integrated it into the Harmstorf Group as Büsumer Werft GmbH . The Harmstorf shipping company also received the new construction order for the coastal tanker Yorksand , which was originally ordered from the Schlichting shipyard and became the shipping company's 19th ship.
There was a ten-year break in the influx of new buildings. During this time Harmstorf shifted his focus to shipyard activities. That led to the takeover of DIW, Berlin, and the shipyard Evers in Niendorf in 1968. In 1973 Harmstorf took over 25% and in 1975 50% of the Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft . With the Travemünder and Büsumer Werft, Harmstorf, with its five operations in Germany and two foreign holdings, was one of Germany's most important shipbuilders. With his son, the qualified shipbuilder Matthias Harmstorf, Alnwick steered his concern Harmstorf AG from Hamburg.
In 1979 the refrigerated motor ship Wittsand from the Schlichting shipyard and the refrigerated motor ships Kniepsand , Grootsand and Rungholtsand (2) from the Büsum shipyard were delivered to the Harmstorf shipping company. The semi-container ships Nigerian Brewer and Togo Brewer (8,000 GRT, ship 32) came in 1980 from the Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft and the RoRo ships Aquarius and Sagittarius in 1983 from Schlichting-Werft.
In 1978 the Büsum shipyard delivered the 37th and 38th ship of the shipping company with the Basilea and Turicia , refrigerated motor ships with around 1,730 GT and 2,175 dwt.
Omega Reefer Services
In 1971 Harmstorf founded the Omega Reefer Services shipping company in Limassol, Cyprus , in order to continue his shipping business here. He had specialized in refrigerated shipping.
Alpha Reefer Transport
In 1984 Harmstorf founded Alpha Reefer Transport GmbH (ART), internationally known as Reeferpool, with the Greek shipowner Laskaridis and the Swiss Alpina shipping company, into which he brought his refrigerated ships. ART had its headquarters in Hamburg in the building of the shipping company Harmstorf & Co. From here the company dispatched around 30 small reefer vessels in 1995, which however lost their advantages over time to the increasingly reliable reefer containers. In 2005, the ART ship list therefore also included considerably larger refrigerated ships and in 2017 medium-sized refrigerated ships up to 500,000 cbft predominated. The chartering is carried out by FSC Frigoship Chartering GmbH in Hamburg.
End of the Harmstorf group
The order books of the German shipyards fell at the end of 1974 from a good seven million GRT in just four years to well below a million GRT. Compared to many other shipyards, the Harmstorf Group suffered from this crisis only later, as ships were also built for its own shipping companies. After the sale of various industrial holdings, a rescue company was founded at the end of September 1986. Today's Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft emerged from this.
In 1988 Harmstorf sold its 50 percent stake in Hanseatic Shipping Co. and acquired Alpina Reederei AG from Basel with the two refrigerated motor ships Turicia and Basilia . In 1990 Harmstorf founded the Alnwick Harmstorf Schiffahrtsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG., In which he also accepted his sons Thomas and Andreas and D. Seidel as partners.
In December 1995 Harmstorf sold the refrigerated ships Wittsand , Kniepsand , Grootsand , Rungholtsand (2), Basilea , Turicia and Medemsand, built in 1978 and 1979 , to Laskaridis Shipping and also his stake in the Alpha Reefer Transport Pool.
Alnwick F. Harmstorf died on April 24, 1996 at the age of 84. His son Thomas continued to run the shipping company and, together with the shipping company Carsten Rehder, acquired the Bremer Makler container ship , Alpina Reederei and Harmstorf Shipping Co., Limassol, through a shipping company holding in Cyprus in 1996 .
Shipping company Harmstorf & Co. Thomas Meier-Hedde GmbH & Co. KG.
After all the ships from that time had been sold by the mid-1990s, there was a new beginning: Thomas Harmstorf and Thomas Meier-Hedde founded a shipping company in 2000. In ten years, 18 ships were put into service. In 2016 the fleet consisted of seven container ships. Thomas Harmstorf left in August 2010. The company operates as the shipping company Harmstorf & Co. Thomas Meier-Hedde GmbH & Co. KG.
Since October 2012 the company has been a subsidiary of the Schlüssel Reederei KG (GmbH & Co.), Bremen.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Shipping company AF Harmstorf & Co., Hamburg. In: Deutsche Reederei Volume 6 , 1997 Verlag Gert Uwe Detlefsen (p. 136).
- ↑ a b c d shipping company AF Harmstorf & Co., Hamburg. In: Deutsche Reederei Volume 6 , 1997 Verlag Gert Uwe Detlefsen (p. 144).
- ↑ Fleet List , FSC Frigoship Chartering.
- ^ Shipping company AF Harmstorf & Co., Hamburg. In: Deutsche Reederei Volume 6 , 1997 Verlag Gert Uwe Detlefsen (p. 145).
- ^ Shipping company AF Harmstorf & Co., Hamburg. In: Deutsche Reedereien Volume 6 , 1997 Verlag Gert Uwe Detlefsen (p. 146).
- ^ [1] Key shipping company and shipping company Harmstorf merge