Company type | Private limited company |
---|---|
Industry | |
Founded | 1855 |
Headquarters | Appledore, Devon, England |
Parent | InfraStrata |
Website | www.harland-wolff.com |
Appledore Shipbuilders is a shipbuilder in Appledore, North Devon, England.
The Appledore Yard was founded in 1855 on the estuary of the River Torridge. [1] The Richmond Dry Dock was built in 1856 by William Yeo and named after Richmond Bay on the north coast of Prince Edward Island in Canada, where the Yeo family's shipping fleet was based. [2]
The business was led by Philip Kelly Harris [3] during the early part of the 20th century and known as P.K. Harris & Sons until 1963, when it became Appledore Shipbuilders. [4]
During World War II, P.K. Harris & Sons built a variety of small vessels for the Royal Navy, primarily coastal craft. These included Fairmile B motor launches ML 128, ML 152, ML 184, ML 233, ML 263, ML 279, ML 304 and ML 451; Fairmile D motor gun boats (later re-classed as motor torpedo boats) MGB 618, MGB 627, MGB 642, MTB 665, MTB 687, MTB 702, MTB 723, MTB 757, MTB 788 and MTB 5021; and (armed) motor fishing vessels MFV 794 and MFV 795.
In 1964 the company was acquired by Court Line, a shipping and airline business. [5] A new shipyard was built on a greenfield site in Appledore at a cost of about £4m, opening for business in 1970. [5] Court Line collapsed in 1974 and Appledore Shipbuilders was nationalised, subsequently being subsumed into British Shipbuilders. By the late 1980s the only yards still held in state ownership were the smaller Appledore and Ferguson yards. [6] In 1989, Appledore Shipbuilders was sold to Langham Industries. [7]
In the late 1990s the two square-rigged sail training ships of the Tall Ships Youth Trust, the Prince William and the Stavros S Niarchos, were completed at Appledore, by performing substantial modifications to two bare hulls begun in Germany. [8]
Appledore built two Róisín-class patrol boats for the Irish Naval Service: LÉ Róisín was completed in 1999 and LÉ Niamh in 2001. In 2010, Ireland ordered a further two, 90-metre (295 ft 3 in), 23- knot (43 km/h; 26 mph) offshore patrol vessels from Babcock with an option for a third, to be built at Appledore. The first Samuel Beckett-class offshore patrol vessels was commissioned in May 2014. In June 2014, the Irish government took up the option for the third ship to be built at Appledore (delivered in 2016) and ordered a fourth in 2016 (delivered in 2018). [9]
In October 2003, the Appledore shipyard went into receivership, [10] and in early 2004 was acquired by DML, the operators of Devonport dockyard. [11] The company was reconstituted as Appledore Shipbuilders (2004) Limited and was run by the DML subsidiary DML Appledore. During this period the yard's main activity was the installation of machinery packages and other systems for luxury yachts for Devonport Yachts Ltd. [12]
In June 2007, Babcock International Group acquired DML, including its operations at the Appledore Shipyard, renaming them Babcock Marine Appledore. A Royal Navy contract secured 300 jobs in Appledore until 2015. [13] The Appledore yard constructed elements of the two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers. Bow sections for HMS Queen Elizabeth were completed in April 2010 and were barged to Rosyth Dockyard for integration with other modules. [14] The yard then built flight deck sponsons and centre blocks for Queen Elizabeth. [15] From 2012, Appledore built similar sections for Queen Elizabeth's sister ship HMS Prince of Wales. [15]
Babcock announced in November 2018 that it had no future for the shipyard, which closed on 15 March 2019. The last vessel to be built at the yard was the LÉ George Bernard Shaw, an Irish Naval Service vessel. [16] [17] [18]
In August 2020, InfraStrata (owners of Belfast shipyard Harland and Wolff) bought the dormant shipyard for £7 million. [19] The deal saw the shipyard renamed H&W Appledore. [20]
In July 2022, the shipyard won a £55 million contract to refit former Royal Navy mine-hunting ship HMS Quorn (M41) which is expected to be passed to the Lithuanian navy in 2024. [21]
The company built more than 350 vessels, including small and medium-sized military craft, bulk carriers, LPG carriers, superyachts, ferries, and oil-industry support vessels. Specific ships include:
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Harland & Wolff is a British shipbuilding and fabrication company headquartered in London with sites in Belfast, Arnish, Appledore and Methil. It specialises in ship repair, shipbuilding and offshore construction. Harland & Wolff is famous for having built the majority of the ocean liners for the White Star Line, including Olympic-class trio – RMS Olympic, RMS Titanic and HMHS Britannic. Outside of White Star Line, other ships that have been built include the Royal Navy's HMS Belfast; Royal Mail Line's Andes; Shaw, Savill & Albion's Southern Cross; Union-Castle's RMS Pendennis Castle; P&O's Canberra; and Hamburg-America's SS Amerika of 1905. Harland and Wolff's official history, Shipbuilders to the World, was published in 1986.
A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Compared to shipyards, which are sometimes more involved with original construction, dockyards are sometimes more linked with maintenance and basing activities. The terms are routinely used interchangeably, in part because the evolution of dockyards and shipyards has often caused them to change or merge roles.
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John I. Thornycroft & Company Limited, usually known simply as Thornycroft, was a British shipbuilding firm founded by John Isaac Thornycroft in Chiswick in 1866. It moved to Woolston, Southampton, in 1908, merging in 1966 with Vosper & Company to form one organisation called Vosper Thornycroft. From 2002 to 2010 the company acquired several international and US-based defence and services companies, and changed name to the VT Group. In 2008 VT's UK shipbuilding and support operations were merged with those of BAE Systems to create BVT Surface Fleet. In 2010 remaining parts of the company were absorbed by Babcock International who retained the UK and international operations, but sold the US based operations to the American Jordan Company, who took the name VT Group.
Seawind Barclay Curle is a British shipbuilding company.
Vosper & Company, often referred to simply as Vospers, was a British shipbuilding company based in Portsmouth, England.
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Ferguson Marine Limited is a shipbuilding company whose yard, located in Port Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde in Scotland, was established in 1903. It is the last remaining shipbuilder on the lower Clyde and is currently the only builder of merchant ships on the river.
Devonport Management Limited owned and managed Devonport Royal Dockyard, the largest dockyard in Western Europe from 1987 until 2007. DML was purchased by Babcock International and was rebranded Babcock Marine.
His Majesty's Naval Base, Devonport is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy and is the sole nuclear repair and refuelling facility for the Royal Navy. The largest naval base in Western Europe, HMNB Devonport is located in Devonport, in the west of the city of Plymouth, England.
The Fairmile B motor launch was a very numerous class of motor launch produced in kit form by British boatbuilder Fairmile Marine, and then assembled and fitted out by numerous boatyards during the Second World War to meet the Royal Navy's coastal operation requirements.
The Fairmile D motor torpedo boat was a type of British motor torpedo boat (MTB) and motor gunboat (MGB), conceived by entrepreneur Noel Macklin of Fairmile Marine and designed by naval architect Bill Holt for the Royal Navy. Nicknamed "Dog Boats", they were designed to be assembled in kit form mass-produced by the Fairmile organisation and assembled at dozens of small boatbuilding yards around Britain, to combat the known advantages of the German E-boats over previous British coastal craft designs. At 115 feet in length, they were bigger than earlier MTB or motor gunboat (MGB) designs but slower, at 30 knots compared to 40 knots.
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MY Vava II is the 97-metre superyacht commissioned by Swiss entrepreneur Ernesto Bertarelli in 2007. Built by Devonport Yachts at Plymouth, England, the hull was built by sister shipyard Appledore Shipbuilders, both being owned by Babcock Marine. She was launched on 2 December 2009 and then taken to Devonport for the accommodation section to be lifted onto the ship. She was fully completed in February 2012. When constructed she was claimed to be the largest British-built superyacht and was the last yacht built by Devonport Yachts following its acquisition by Pendennis Shipyard. The yacht's designers were Hampshire-based firm Redman Whitely Dixon (exterior) and the French interior designer Remi Tessier.
LÉ Samuel Beckett (P61) is a Samuel Beckett-class offshore patrol vessel (OPV) of the Irish Naval Service. The ship was launched in November 2013 and commissioned in May 2014. She is named after Irish playwright and author Samuel Beckett.
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