Damen Shiprepair Oranjewerf is celebrating 70 years of delivering repair, maintenance, conversion and refit services to the maritime industry, the company said in its release.
Throughout Damen Shiprepair Oranjewerf’s long history, the yard’s services have remained very much unchanged. Founded in 1949 by a consortium of local shipping companies and shipyards, the yard’s major aim was to offer repair services to inland and coastal vessels. Now, 70 years later and part of the Damen Shipyards Group since 1989, Damen Shiprepair Oranjewerf is able draw upon that vast amount of experience to continue its work for numerous maritime markets. A look at the yard’s current workforce illustrates this continuity of skills; some of the team have worked there for more than 20 years, one of them for 40 years.
The inland cruise sector is particularly important for Damen Shiprepair Oranjewerf. Every year, for example, some 2,400 inland cruise vessels visit the city of Amsterdam. “About 25 to 30 of these come to us and Damen Shiprepair Amsterdam for some sort of docking,” says Jeen van der Werf, sales manager at the yard. The common factor required by these clients is a quick turnaround, something that Damen Shiprepair Oranjewerf can reduce to less than six hours.
Damen Shiprepair Oranjewerf still works with inland cruise vessels in the off-peak season, but then this is typically for more lengthy jobs such as special surveys or more intense maintenance tasks. For all its work, the yard utilises one dry-dock (135 x 23 metres, with a 6,000 tonne capacity) and one slipway (100 x 11 metres, 1,500 tonne capacity). These are occupied 95% of the time.
Joining the Damen Shipyards Group 30 years ago saw Damen Shiprepair Oranjewerf increase its coverage to more maritime sectors. Today, this most notably includes clients from the offshore industry, with ships operating out of IJmuiden and Den Helder, in addition to vessels working in the dredging and cargo sectors.
Damen Shipyards Group
Damen Shipyards Group operates 36 shipbuilding and repair yards, employing 12,000 people worldwide. Damen has delivered more than 6,500 vessels in more than 100 countries and delivers around 175 vessels annually to customers worldwide. Based on its unique, standardised ship-design concept Damen is able to guarantee consistent quality.
Damen’s focus on standardisation, modular construction and keeping vessels in stock leads to short delivery times, low ‘total cost of ownership’, high resale values and reliable performance. Furthermore, Damen vessels are based on thorough R&D and proven technology.
Damen offers a wide range of products, including tugs, workboats, naval and patrol vessels, high speed craft, cargo vessels, dredgers, vessels for the offshore industry, ferries, pontoons and superyachts.
For nearly all vessel types Damen offers a broad range of services, including maintenance, spare parts delivery, training and the transfer of (shipbuilding) know-how. Damen also offers a variety of marine components, such as nozzles, rudders, winches, anchors, anchor chains and steel works.
Damen Shiprepair & Conversion (DSC) has a worldwide network of eighteen repair and conversion yards of which twelve are located in North West Europe. Facilities at the yards include more than 50 floating (and covered) drydocks, including the longest, 420 x 80 metres, and the widest, 405 x 90 metres, as well as slopes, ship lifts and indoor halls. Projects range from the smallest simple repairs through Class’ maintenance to complex refits and the complete conversion of large offshore structures. DSC completes around 1,300 repair and maintenance jobs annually, both at yards as well as in ports and during voyage.