Gebr. Friedrich Schiffswerft

Gebr. Friedrich Schiffswerft (Gebr. Friedrich GmbH & Co. KG) is a family-owned shipyard founded in 1921 in Kiel-Friedrichsort, at the Baltic entrance of the Kiel Canal in Germany. With around 85 employees, it focuses on ship repair, conversions, refits and metal fabrication, and also builds tugs, work boats and floating houses. Repairs are carried out on its three longitudinal slipways and in a covered repair hall, or on site at the customer's berth in Germany and abroad — work it describes as its "flying shipyard" service. The yard is also active in research and joint projects on methanol fuel cells, battery-electric propulsion, ship-to-ship bunkering of alternative fuels and digitalisation, including the autonomous all-electric MS Wavelab on the Kiel Fjord.

Founded in 1921 by the brothers Johann and Wilhelm Friedrich, Gebr. Friedrich GmbH & Co. KG is a family-run shipyard in Kiel-Friedrichsort at the exit of the Kiel Canal, whose owners traditionally live on the yard site. The company celebrated its centenary in 2021 and today employs about 85 people, combining conventional shipbuilding trades with maritime electronics (through its subsidiary Gebr. Friedrich Industrie- und Elektrotechnik GmbH), a metal fabrication business, and an engineering department for development and design. Customers include public authorities, the Bundeswehr, yacht owners, tall ship operators and private owners.

Services

Ship repair, conversion and refit work, at the yard or alongside at the vessel's berth
Machinery component overhaul, including laser-optical alignment; on-site service in ports and at sea, in Germany and abroad ("flying shipyard")
Newbuilding of tugs, work boats and floating houses
Metal fabrication of maritime installations from prototype to small series, using waterjet cutting and 3D printing
Development and design: 2D/3D modelling, strength calculations, steel and aluminium structures, fleet modernisation concepts and economic assessments
Integration of electric propulsion and power supply systems; advice on e-mobility and alternative synthetic fuels
R&D and joint projects: hybrid methanol fuel cell / battery retrofit of a buoy tender (GENES), ship-to-ship bunkering concept (CAPTN-ENERGY), digitalisation and additive manufacturing (DienstMaritim 4.0)

Facilities

Yard area approx. 10,000 m²; metal fabrication site 12,000 m² with a 1,500 m² production hall and 20 t crane capacity
Three longitudinal slipways for vessels from 10 to 65 m length, up to 10.5 m beam and up to 600 t
Enclosed ship repair hall, 50 m long and 15.5 m wide, for demanding repair and painting work
Multifunction pier commissioned in 2021, 100 m long and 15 m wide, suitable for handling and servicing batteries for electric propulsion and for future fuels
Waterjet cutting for steel and aluminium; workshop trucks for mobile work at the vessel's berth; WLAN service

Approvals

DNV GL approved welding workshop for hull structures, outfitting and piping per DIN EN ISO 3834-2
DIN 2303 class Q2 BK1 for welding on defence products
EN 1090-2 EXC3 (steel) and EN 1090-3 EXC3 (aluminium) structures
Welding of steel up to S355, stainless steels, aluminium and CuNiFe

Location

Prieser Strand 15a, 24159 Kiel, Germany; additional metal fabrication site at Falckensteiner Straße 2 and a hangar accessed via Schusterkrug 25