.png)
It was at least forty years ago that the late Derek Kimber, one of the UK’s few successful shipbuilders at the time, observed that, “Once the grass has grown on a shipyard building berth, it is very unlikely to ever open again.” And it was a prophetic remark, with the UK and indeed much of Europe’s shipbuilding industry, being in free fall, with both sharply reduced demand and an inability to compete with the thrusting shipbuilders of the Far East.
The process has continued over the years, with Japan losing its crown to South Korea, the inexorable rise of China and now newly ambitious builders growing in Vietnam, India, Indonesia, and elsewhere. Wherever there is a willing, trainable labour force at economic prices, with governments recognising the ability of this sector to earn foreign exchange and reduce local unemployment, competitive shipbuilding will appear.
It might be cyclical and as the economists like to term it an industry of supremely derived demand, but in a world where the potential customers have learned to think globally, there are plenty of opportunities.
The international expertise that can turn a primitive shipbuilding slip into a competitive shipyard, offering ever more sophisticated designs is available, witness so many of the world-class designers who have forged links with these faraway shipbuilders and producing the goods.
Increasingly, the once slow process that saw a new shipbuilding sector graduating from simple construction to more advanced designs has been accelerated, and the European shipyards that clung onto the more sophisticated sectors are struggling to fill their orderbooks for ships of some complexity.
A client looking for a big or small ferry will be spoilt for choice, with fewer objections to building on the far side of the world. And even those European shipbuilders that opted for hybrid arrangements, with hulls built in Eastern Europe and the vessel fitted out and finished in the “home” yard, will find they are competing with shipyards in Asia that will offer a turnkey solution and a fully finished product, ready for its delivery voyage.
The needs of the shipowners remain unaltered; they are looking for an attractive price, reasonable terms, a realistic delivery date and above all reliability, with no undue fears about the financial risk their choice of yard could involve.
There can be no sentiment about supporting the home market, although it does not stop struggling shipyards trying to harvest political support for such a strategy. It is a considerable risk to bow to pressure from such directions and place orders with shipyards from which any expertise and experience has long gone.
When a shipyard closes, there is a tendency to see it as a factory that is only waiting for an order to start it up again. And while the equipment might be available, the skilled workforce will have quickly dispersed to other occupations or other parts of the world where there are opportunities.
It is a big “ask” to entrust an order to a shipyard that might have an ancient name and in the distant past in an earlier life might have built famous ships, but has no recent experience and will have to effectively train its labour force on “your” ship. You do not have to go far to see examples of ships that, for the best possible motives, were built to assuage local or political sentiment and that were delivered late and far more expensively than would have been the case had an experienced foreign builder won the contract.
There is something of a myth that expertise in ship repair might serve as a module to graduate into newbuilding, but, in reality, they are quite different. Similarly, history around the world suggests that shipbuilders that have majored in the construction of warships and government vessels will find it difficult to “translate” into the commercial sector, where the customer’s priorities will be different.
About the same time that Derek Kimber was enunciating his remarks about grassy ways, which have been quoted many times, this writer was conducting a fierce campaign to stop what might be termed a prestige UK operator building a ship abroad, in a faraway Asian yard where the price was hugely attractive. It might seem hypocritical, but I would not do the same thing today, in a world where sensible people follow the money and register the risks.
