Unterweser shipping company
Unterweser Reederei GmbH
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legal form | GmbH |
founding | 1890 |
Seat |
Bremen Germany |
management | Antonio Bordils Montero |
Branch | Shipping company |
Website | www.urag.de |
The Unterweser Reederei GmbH (URAG) was founded in 1890 as a towage company Unterweser (SGUW) in Bremen founded in 1922 Aktiengesellschaft Unterweser Reederei renamed.
history
Founded in 1890
The company was founded by Bremen merchants in 1890 with a capital of 500,000 marks under the name Schleppschifffahrtsgesellschaft Unterweser (SGUW), since the Weser correction began in July 1887 and was required for the increasing ship traffic to Bremen. For a long time larger ships had to be lightened in barges that were towed by tugs to Bremen. In 1891 the fleet included eight tugs with a total of around 975 hp and ten barges with a total of around 3,000 tdw. After the Dortmund-Ems Canal was completed, a canal fleet of 16 sea barges, six canal barges and one sea tug was procured and used here. Around 1900, the SGUW began lighter traffic for the Baltic Sea, and four more tugboats and seaworthy barges were purchased. In 1912, 29 tugboats and around 50 lighters were already in service for the SGUW.
Tugs and cargo steamers
With the Weser , the company acquired the first freight steamer at the beginning of 1915 in order not to limit the transport of goods to just light traffic. The First World War reduced the fleet, but the "Canal Fleet" was sold shortly before the outbreak of war. The freighter Weser had to be delivered after the war. The metal company acquired the first shares of SGUW; In 1920 she owned the majority of the shares. Three cargo ships, the Bockenheim , Gonzenheim and Heddernheim, were bought to take over the ore transport for the metal company. In 1922, the company was renamed Unterweser Reederei Aktiengesellschaft , which is generally known under the short form URAG, to document that it is not only tugboat shipping .
In the next few years with inflation, the Third Reich with foreign exchange control and synchronization, URAG was able to further expand and modernize its fleet. The fleet was further restructured and modernized. In 1936 a branch was founded in Hamburg . Like most shipping companies, URAG was surprised by the outbreak of war. Therefore, the Gonzenheim, angered by the English, was lost.
Reconstruction of the tug and freighter fleet
The fact that Bremerhaven became an American supply port after the Second World War was a stroke of luck for URAG. In addition to the towing services, the freighter fleet was expanded again. In 1953 URAG had 18 tugs and the total load capacity of the freighters was 65,000 tdw. As part of constant modernization, the Voith Schneider drive was introduced for new tugs from 1959 . The shipping company valued the advantages highly, so that this drive has now become the standard drive for the URAG tugs. In addition to the normal towing activity in the ports, an increasing number of towing orders were accepted overseas, which were carried out with the most powerful tugs. While the shipping company's first tugs had around 100 hp, the performance had meanwhile increased by a factor of 15, while the overseas tugs even had around 4,000 hp.
In 1962 the two bulk carriers MS Eckenheim and MS Langelsheim were put into service. Other ships were: MS Ginnheim , MS Berkerheim , MS Praunheim (Bulk Carrier), MS Eckenheim (Bulk Carrier) and MS Langelsheim - all again named after locations in the Frankfurt area and also bulk carriers.
Change of ownership
In 1989, the 100 percent share in URAG was transferred from Metallgesellschaft to Lehnkering Montan Transport (today VTG-Lehnkering AG). URAG took over 100% of the tug shipping company Lütgens & Reimers (L&R) from Hapag-Lloyd and 20% of the tug fleet from Norddeutscher Lloyd .
In 1999 Lehnkering Montan Transport became part of the Preussag Group of Hapag-Lloyd AG .
In 2001, the URAG with the shipping association Forschungsschiffahrt and the Wiking Helikopter Service were sold to the medium-sized family company Linnhoff Schiffahrt in Buxtehude .
In 2016/2017, Linnhoff Schiffahrt sold its tug shipping companies URAG and Lütgens & Reimers (L&R) to the Spanish shipping company Boluda Corporación Marítima , which already has a fleet of over 200 tugs operating in ports in Spain, France, North Africa and Latin America. The new company Boluda Germany was founded in Bremen to manage the two towing companies in Germany .
Service and fleet
URAG's main field of activity is tug assistance in the ports of Bremerhaven, Bremen , Nordenham , Brake and Wilhelmshaven . In addition to the harbor tugs, URAG has several ships that can also be used on the high seas for the recovery and support of offshore structures.
The subsidiary Lütgens & Reimers today has a fleet of five Voith Schneider tugs. The Accurat , chartered by URAG, and the Constant are currently used as seagoing ship assistance in the Port of Hamburg , on the Lower Elbe and in Bützfleth . Three more tugs, the Brake , the Grohn and the Turm are in bareboat charter with URAG. Three mooring boats and mooring cars are operated for the mooring service.
Surname | Construction year | measurement | Bollard pull | power | Range of use | Ship details |
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Accurat | 1993 | 368 GT | 46 tbp | 3200 kW | Port, long-haul and salvage tugs | |
Berne | 1985 | 229 GT | 25.5 tbp | 1600 kW | Harbor and salvage tugs | Data sheet (PDF; 572 kB) |
Blinking | 1988 | 219 GT | 25.5 tbp | 1600 kW | Harbor and salvage tugs | Data sheet (PDF; 673 kB) |
Blumenthal | 1990 | 219 GT | 30.4 tbp | 2000 kW | Harbor and salvage tugs | Data sheet (PDF; 684 kB) |
Brake | 1983 | 218 NRZ | 25.5 tbp | 1600 kW | Harbor and salvage tugs | Data sheet (PDF; 1 MB) |
Bremen | 1993 | 358 GT | 46 tbp | 3200 kW | Port, long-haul and salvage tugs | |
Bremen Fighter | 2004 | 1262 GT | 120 tbp | 5940 kW | Anchor handling tug | Data sheet (PDF; 703 kB) |
Bremerhaven | 1993 | 358 GT | 46 tbp | 3200 kW | Port, long-haul and salvage tugs | Data sheet (PDF; 545 kB) |
Constant | 1987 | 218 GT | 30.5 tbp | 3680 kW | Harbor and salvage tugs | Data sheet (PDF; 314 kB) |
Geeste | 2010 | 377 GT | 90 tbp | 5304 kW | Port, long-haul and salvage tugs | Data sheet (PDF; 2.1 MB) |
Hunte | 2010 | 377 GT | 90 tbp | 5304 kW | Port, long-haul and salvage tugs | Data sheet (PDF; 2.1 MB) |
jade | 2000 | 518 GT | 71 tbp | 5000 kW | Port, long-haul and salvage tugs | Data sheet (PDF; 764 kB) |
Red sand | 1976 | 256 GT | 34 tbp | 1764 kW | Port, long-haul and salvage tugs | |
tower | 2001 | 452 GT | 54 tbp | 3744 kW | Port, long-haul and salvage tugs | Data sheet (PDF; 680 kB) |
Weser | 2000 | 518 GT | 71 tbp | 5000 kW | Port, long-haul and salvage tugs | Data sheet (PDF; 601 kB) |
Wilhelmshaven | 1998 | 359 GT | 51 tbp | 3690 kW | Harbor and salvage tugs | Data sheet (PDF; 973 kB) |
gallery
literature
- Günter Full: 120 years of URAG · »Service = serve and perform« . In: Hansa Heft 7/2010, pp. 48–53. Schiffahrts-Verlag Hansa, Hamburg 2010, ISSN 0017-7504
- Jan Mordhorst: 125 years of Unterweser Reederei URAG: 1890–2015. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-7822-1219-9
- History of the Unterweser shipping company
Web links
- Company website
- Bad coastal protection
- Early documents and newspaper articles about the Unterweser shipping company in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Linnhoff sells towing companies URAG and L&R , Hansa International Maritime Journal, December 5, 2016.
- ↑ Kristian Förster: Linhoff separates from URAG and L&R . In: Hansa , issue 1/2017, pp. 36/37.
- ↑ Wolfhart Fabarius: Sale of URAG and L&R sealed · Tug already under the flag of the new owner Boluda · Management company founded . In: Daily port report of February 23, 2017, p. 4