Meyer Werft

Meyer Werft has built ships at Papenburg since 1795 and now produces some of the largest cruise ships in the world, in covered building docks, one of which is over five hundred metres long. The complication is geography: the yard is about forty kilometres up the Ems from the open sea, on a river far too small for the finished vessels, so each ship is moved out on a conveyance, a slow overnight transfer with the ship reversed down the dredged channel, sometimes with only centimetres of clearance under bridges and past houses. These conveyances draw tens of thousands of spectators to the banks.

History

Willm Rolf Meyer founded the yard at the beginning of 1795 to build small wooden vessels, and Josef Lambert Meyer began building iron ships in 1874; of more than 20 shipyards once in the Papenburg area, it is the only one left. It became known for ro-ro and passenger ferries, tankers, container ships, livestock carriers and, latest, luxury cruise ships, and its first covered building dock, opened in 1987, was 370 meters long, extended by 100 meters in 1990/91, with a second covered dock built in 2004 and planned at 504 meters; in 2014 the group took over the Turku shipyard in Finland (Wikipedia, Meyer Werft).

What you'll find

• The covered dock - a building hall over five hundred metres long.
• The visitor centre - a gallery overlooking construction with models and displays.
• The conveyance - a ship reversed down a narrow river, watched by crowds.
• The scale - cruise vessels assembled forty kilometres from the sea.

When to go

April to October for the visitor centre; conveyance dates are announced in advance and draw very large crowds. The centre closes in winter for a period.

Practical notes

The visitor centre is a gallery, not a yard tour; you cannot walk the shipyard. What is visible depends on the build stage. Conveyance dates shift.

Nearby

Emden lies northwest; the Dutch border is west.

Key facts