Oldendorff Centenary Book - Flipbook - Page 211
TECHNOLOGICAL
PROGRESS
With the purchase of four single-deckers
from Rendsburg, the company was one of
the first to invest in automated engine room
control technology.
Werft Nobiskrug GmbH of Rendsburg delivered the CHRISTIANE OLDENDORFF
(4,380 tdw) in 1962, the lead ship, in a highly efficient series of four singledeckers earmarked for the conventional carriage of timber and bulk cargoes
in European waters.
To their surprise the shipbuilders discovered one of the many of their client’s
little recipes for success: Egon Oldendorff had in the early Sixties sold a
number of his older steamers for scrapping which before handover he had
stripped of the modern navigational aids and radio stations retrofitted at the
time he purchased the ships on the second-hand market. He now took that
equipment to the shipyard and made the builders install it in the newbuildings.
Egon Oldendorff also bought the NORA HUGO STINNES, a singledecker of
4,280 tdw and 207,000 cuft which ideally matched the new series but for its
year of delivery, 1956. The ship was chartered back to her previous owners,
Hugo Stinnes Transozean Schiffahrt GmbH and was renamed the HUGO
OLDENDORFF (3) when that charter expired. JOBST OLDENDORFF, the last of
the four ships built by Nobiskrug, was to be the last ‘small’ ship for Oldendorff.
The ships intended for European shortsea trading were also Great Lakes and
Panama Canal fitted. All other Oldendorff ships to follow were larger and
genuine deepsea type vessels.
The German shipping journal Schiff & Hafen published an article in volume
10 of 1963: “The level of international freight rates forced owners to seek
larger and more efficient ships. One of the effects of endeavours to rationalise
trade, industry and transport is automation as a means of reducing the labour
force, i.e. monitoring and control of equipment by automated devices.”
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