Lloyd Shipyard (dock 3)

The extension of the Kaiserhafen (1892 to 1897) was also important for the development of the Lloyd shipyard, the repair yard of North German Lloyd (1857). This powerful company owned an expanding fleet of ocean vessels and wanted to do overhaul work on its vessels using its own facilities. So a small repair yard was established at Bremen as early as 1857/58. But in 1862, a second repair yard was opened at Bremerhaven, situated between Alter and Neuer Hafen. In 1871/72 a dry dock was constructed on the west side of Neuer Hafen. In the end, those facilities also became too small for Lloyd's constantly expanding fleet.

So a larger area to the north of the new Kaiserhafen was leased from the State of Bremen. A new dry dock (Kaiserdock I) went into operation there in September 1899 (length 226 metres). A second dock, Kaiserdock II (267.90 metres) was constructed from 1908 to 1913 and extended to 335 metres from 1929 to 1931.

The Lloyd repair and maintenance yard was fully utilized for a wide scale of works for the company fleet, but in the depression years after 1929, scrapping of vessels was also conducted to keep the plant going.

After World War II, many Lloyd ships were still repaired there, also after 1970, when the yard became part of the newly formed Hapag-Lloyd concern. Besides that, a handful of port tugs had been built for the company at the yard.

But more and more, complicated and demanding conversions became the specialty of the firm and made it famous in shipping circles worldwide. In 1984, the yard left the Hapag-Lloyd conglomerate and nowadays operates independently and successfully as Lloyd Shipyard in the international repair and conversion business.

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