Svendborg Skibsværft (Svendborg Shipyard) was a shipyard, which was located at Frederiksø in

Svendborg Svendborg () is a town on the island of Funen in south-central Denmark, and the seat of Svendborg Municipality. With a population of 27,616 (1 January 2025), Svendborg is Funen's second largest city.Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

. It was founded in 1907 and closed in 2001, after building close to 200 ships.

History

Svendborg Shipyard was founded in 1907 by ship builder George Ring Andersen, who along with his three brothers started making steel ships as a supplement to the wood ship yards already present at Frederiksø. 21 steel ships were produced until 1916 when machine workshops were added to ship building. In 1925 the yard went bankrupt, but new capital were raised by local businesses and marked a new prosperous period with several orders specializing in mid-size ferries for islands like

Langeland Langeland (, ) is a Danish island located between the Great Belt and Bay of Kiel. The island measures 285 km2 (c. 110 square miles) and, as of 1 January 2018, has a population of 12,446.

and

Ærø Ærø () is one of the Denmark, Danish Baltic Sea islands, and part of the Region of Southern Denmark, Southern Denmark Region. Since 1 January 2006 all of Ærø has constituted a single Municipalities of Denmark, municipality, known as Ærø M ...

. After the second world war, shipping magnate A.P. Møller bought a large share of the stocks intending to merge the yard with

Odense Steel Shipyard Odense Steel Shipyard () was a Danish shipyard company located in Odense. It was best known for building container ships for its parent group, Maersk, A.P. Moller – Maersk Group, including the Mærsk E-class container ship, Mærsk E class in ...

, but it was later bought by A/S Carl Nielsen. Under the leadership of former ØK-director Per Glente the yard expanded reaching a peak in the period 1988-1992 when the

Royal Danish Navy The Royal Danish Navy (, ) is the Naval warfare, sea-based branch of the Danish Armed Forces force. The RDN is mainly responsible for maritime defence and maintaining the sovereignty of Denmark, Danish territorial waters (incl. Faroe Islands and ...

ordered four new Ocean Patrol Vessels. Efforts were made to sell similar ships to

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

and other countries, but after the production of two

coastal trading vessel Coastal trading vessels, also known as coasters or skoots, are shallow-hulled merchant ships used for transporting cargo along a coastline. Their shallow hulls mean that they can get through reefs where deeper-hulled seagoing ships usually cannot ...

s no more ships were ordered before the company was declared bankrupt in 1999. A series of attempts were made to keep production on site but in 2001 the site at Frederiksø in Svendborg was ultimately closed. The yard produced around 200 new ships in its 92 years of operation.

References

*http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/svendborg.htm {{DEFAULTSORT:Svendborg Skibsvaerft Danish companies established in 1907 2001 disestablishments in Denmark Shipyards of Denmark Svendborg