Oldendorff Centenary Book - Flipbook - Page 281
The next two ships to wear the EO
livery joined the fleet in 1987, on the
basis described above: the 23,818 tdw
multi-purpose freighters THEEKAR
and AL MUHARRAQ, owned by United
Arab Shipping Co. of Kuwait, built in
Great Britain and in South Korea. They
were re-named the CHRISTOFFER
OLDENDORFF (3) and MAGDALENA
OLDENDORFF (2). Egon Oldendorff
exercised the contractual purchase
options and re-sold the ships in 1988
and 1993.
After a long interlude a German-built
vessel again became part of the
Oldendorff fleet in 1988, albeit from
the then people’s own Warnowwerft
of Eastern Germany. Prior to being
delivered to Egon Oldendorff (Liberia)
Inc. of Monrovia on 21 January 1988,
MARIA OLDENDORFF (2) paid a short
visit to Lübeck, the headquarters of her
owners, to have cargo cranes installed
at the outfitting pier of Orenstein &
Koppel/LMG. She was to undergo a
much bigger operation a little later.
The semi-containership only
performed one trip out to the Far East
in her original configuration as the
lengthening by a midship section of 16m
had already been firmly contracted
with Jurong Shipyard Ltd. at Singapore.
It was found that a 20,000 tonner with
a container intake of 1,100 TEU had a
much better market acceptance than
the 18,000 tdw and 930 TEU version
supplied by the builders. The latter,
part of the GDR shipbuilding industry
was not sufficiently flexible to alter the
basic parameters of the ship during
the construction phase, and another
shipyard had to be found for the
lengthening job. The same procedure
was repeated two years later in the
case of the BEATE OLDENDORFF. The
name, that of shipowner Henning
Oldendorff’s spouse, was a first in
the Oldendorff fleet.
As part of a deal involving six
containerships, Egon Oldendorff
purchased, in 1988, two fully cellular
sisterships, built in 1985 by Hyundai in
South Korea, each of 33,864 tdw and
with a container intake of 1,800 TEU.
277
