Germanischer Lloyd

The Germanischer Lloyd AG is a classification society based in the city of Hamburg, Germany. As a technical supervisory organization Germanischer Lloyd regularly conducts safety surveys on more than 7,000 ships with over 79 Mio GT. Its technical and engineering services also include the mitigation of risks and assurance of legal compliance for oil, gas and industrial installations as well as wind energy plants. The society also certifies the operating performance of companies and performs damage investigations as well as destructive and non-destructive tests of materials.

History

On 16 March 1867, a group of 600 shipowners, shipbuilders and insurers met in the big hall of the Hamburg Stock Exchange on the occasion of the founding convention of Germanischer Lloyd. On behalf of the founding committee, the merchant and shipowner August Behn signed the statute of the young institution. The founding committee consisted of representatives of shipowners J.C. Godeffroy & Sohn, A.J. Schön & Co., A.J. Hertz & Söhne as well as R.M. Sloman. The new society was founded as a non-profit association based in Hamburg.

The reason for forming a German classification society was to achieve transparency. Merchants, shipowners and insurers used to get hardly any information about the state of a ship. However, safe transport of passengers and goods was and is in the interest of all parties involved. As independent classification society, Germanischer Lloyd was created to evaluate the quality of a ship and deliver the results to shipowners, merchants and insurers.

First classifications were based on construction rules developed by Friedrich Schüler, a shipbuilder from Stettin-Grabow, Germany. GL’s first international ship classification register from 1868 reports 273 classed ships – 26 of them under a foreign flag. In 1877, ten times more classed ships were registered. As a consequence, the surveyor network extended rapidly. By 1869, GL had surveyors in a dozen German seaports and outside Germany in St Petersburg, Copenhagen, London, Liverpool, Amsterdam, Constantinople, Swatow, St Thomas, Amoy, Penang and Singapore.

Iron and steam ships became more and more popular, slowly replacing wooden sailers. After years of economic difficulties, Imperial Chancellor Bismarck took charge of the situation by announcing a commission. Its advice: The association ought to turn into a public company. The change was finalised at the general assembly which took place on 5 October 1889.

As the economic situation improved, Germanischer Lloyd was ready for new challenges. In 1894, GL decided to extend its service by teaming up with the German maritime authority “See-Berufsgenossenschaft (SeeBG)”, which was founded in 1887. While the SeeBG issued rules for accident prevention and checked for their compliance, GL provided support as technical adviser. The collaboration between both parties has lasted until today.

As a classification society, Germanischer Lloyd has always focused on ship safety. The importance of the subject became clear when the tragic “Titanic” disaster happened in 1912. Two years later, the GL director attended the “Titanic” conference as representative of the German government. At this point, 10 per cent of the world’s merchant fleet was classed by Germanischer Lloyd. The First World War, however, was a severe set-back.

International relationships were discontinued and foreign ships changed class. Furthermore, there was a lack of material and costs rose rising due to war support and costs of living bonuses. After the war things started to improve again. By 1939, the register contained 4.7 million GT. Then the Second World War left its mark: the headquarters was destroyed, offices bombed out and overseas agencies lost. Most files were abolished or confiscated. But the Allied Control Council eventually allowed advocates from the shipping, shipbuilding, and ship insurance industry to obtain a temporary licence for the company; it became permanent in 1948. Following the war, Germany’s economic recover led to rapid development: within seven years the classed tonnage increased from 400,000 to three million GT.

The company continued to grow. Large-capacity computers enabled the design and construction of bigger and more modern ships. Containerships are developed to satisfy the increasing consumer demand for goods. These open vessels are a lot more vulnerable to torsion and are a particular challenge for design engineers. GL invested in research resulting in new construction rules for containerships.

At the beginning of the 1970s, offshore technology became an important field of activity for Germanischer Lloyd. In 1973, working on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Research and Technology, the society surveyed the construction of the research platform “North Sea” and supervised its installation to the North West of the German island Helgoland. GL was also involved in the installation of the first German oil production platforms “Mittelplate”, located in the Wadden Sea, and “Schwedeneck”, located in the Baltic Sea bight off Kiel, Germany. Many other offshore technology projects followed and the work continues today.

In 1977, wind energy was introduced as a new business segment. This diversification, originally started in the 1960s, prevented the society from being severely affected by the shipbuilding crisis in the first half of the 1980s.

Today, the international network is growing again. Germanischer Lloyd has established a global network of 176 offices in 76 countries, employing more than 4,100 people. 124 flag states have authorized GL to perform statutory duties. According to annually published Port State Control statistics, Germanischer Lloyd has been ranking amongst the top classification societies for years.

In the autumn of 2006, French rival Bureau Veritas launched a hostile takeover bid but this was defeated through the support of Hamburg-based entrepreneur Günter Herz, who has now acquired over 95% of GL's shares.

ee also

*Germanischer Lloyd guidelines for fuel cells on ships and boats

Links

* [http://www.gl-group.com Germanischer Lloyd]
* [http://www.iacs.org.uk IACS - International Association of Classification Societies]