However, the ensuing economic slump saw shipyard employment figures fall from a pre-war high of 25, to just in Workman and Clark were bought over by the Tyneside company Northumberland Shipping, but declared bankruptcy in A management buyout was arranged, but a combination of the Wall Street Crash and a serious fire on the dock bound liner Bermuda finished off Workman and Clark in Harland and Wolff survived the slump by changing the type of boat the yard produced. The opulent heights of the Titanic degenerated into rudimentary hulls with engines attached.
But fewer workers were required to build these vessels and unemployment continued to shadow the yards. Wartime Returns Harland and Wolff were by now the only the only shipbuilders on the Lagan, and survived to emerge as a key component in the war effort of to Employment in the shipyards returned to over 20, as the firm made boats, tanks and guns in the early rearmament drive.
Kvaerner took the yard through another modernisation programme to enable it to specialise in the construction of liquefied natural gas and chemical tankers. But in the late s, the market became depressed and the yard had to find alternative contracts.
The yard passed to BAE Systems in and has found work over the past decade making destroyers and aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy. BAE is a key partner in the construction of the two Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers being built at the Portsmouth yard and in Scotland. However, after their construction is complete, there is only expected to be the need for one centre for naval shipbuilding in the UK to build the next generation of Type 26 frigates.
The Clyde aircraft carrier work is due to finish in It is still not clear where Type 26 frigates will be built. There are no other orders on books. Could the sun be setting on a long tradition of Govan shipbuilding?
New fears for shipyard's future. Conversations with veteran industrialists about the state of shipbuilding today do not yield whimsical reminiscence of the good old days. Instead they produce regrets that tough commercial decisions — of the kind that saw France and Germany aggressively pursue markets such as nuclear power or premium cars — were not made in Britain in the 70s and 80s.
Sir John Parker, the former chief executive of Harland and Wolff, the much-diminished Belfast shipbuilder, said the industry missed an opportunity in the Thatcher era. Whoever used run-of-the-mill bulk carriers or tankers drifted to the lowest-cost country.
So how you survived in higher-cost countries was more sophisticated ships like cruise ships. I saw that there was going to be a lot of growth in cruise ship building so we demonstrated that this was a real growth industry. And nearly 25 years on, those forecasts would have underestimated the demand.
A shipbuilding industry remains in the UK, although it will be even smaller in the wake of Portsmouth and the winnowing down of what remains on the Clyde. Some of it is envied abroad. And these are the niches that the industry occupies: bulge-bracket naval work that has just been dealt a ruinous blow; and specialist work like Sunseeker.
0コメント