Oldendorff Centenary Book - Flipbook - Page 259
THE SUNDERLAND
CONNECTION
The early 1970s saw Egon Oldendorff investing
in multi-purpose SD14 ships from the Austin
& Pickersgill shipyard in Sunderland, England.
For the first time in his company’s post-war history Egon Oldendorff, for a
period of three years, did not commission a newbuilding because funds were
tied up in the large tankers. The six SD14 type highly versatile multipurpose
ships delivered in the early Seventies by British shipyard Austin & Pickersgill
performed very satisfactorily in worldwide tramping. Bremer Vulkan-built
multipurpose freighters and Seebeck Type 36L vessels were better suited for
liner trading, being somewhat too sophisticated for pure tramp operations.
Solid business relations developed between Oldendorff and the British
shipbuilders who by completing altogether nine standardised freighters for
Egon Oldendorff had delivered the largest British-built series to any one
German owner since the end of World War I, a statistical item worth recording
in the book of shipping history. The British shipbuilding industry, world leaders
in pre-WWI times, had then built many ships for German account but from
the 1920s onwards the majority of German orders went to domestic yards.
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