150 years of Lurssen: German engineering since 1875

Lurssen is a family-run enterprise that has grown from modest beginnings via simply 4 generations right into a premier shipbuilder. It has been constructed upon core ideas: high quality, innovation and engineering excellence. These ideas stay simply as true right this moment. Because it celebrates its jubilee, Lurssen prepares to ship its subsequent step in the direction of a visionary way forward for yachting.

When Friedrich Lurssen based Lurssen at simply 24 in 1875, he rapidly cemented his popularity for constructing exquisitely tuned rowboats, and later for pioneering the world’s first motorboat with a combustion engine along with Gottlieb Daimler.

These early Lurssen boats have been unique, fashionable, reduce from the best woods, and constructed to a meticulous customary. Friedrich Lurssen was personally concerned from the primary reduce to the ultimate supply and famously greeted his staff on the gate each morning, with out fail. His ardour and the precedent he set for high quality and efficiency have turn into synonymous with Lurssen.

“It’s with nice satisfaction that I mirror on how Lurssen has developed into the corporate it’s right this moment,” says Peter Lurssen. “We’ve got had 100 and fifty years marked by trials, challenges and jubilations. There have been storms and successes. Nonetheless, these success tales don’t belong solely to Lurssen as an organization. I wish to take this chance to precise my honest gratitude to all our staff – previous and current – with out whom we might not be right here, celebrating 150 years.”

Values have been handed down from technology to technology, and successes have been earned via the experience and dedication of its individuals. Not solely is Lurssen a family-run enterprise, however a lot of its trades and crafts are additionally generational. It’s as a lot a household firm in higher administration as it’s in its manufacturing halls.

Lurssen is an organization that appears after its personal and one that provides again to the broader neighborhood in equal measures. Lurssen’s dedication to innovation, ocean conservation, and the way forward for shipbuilding has by no means faltered since its inception. Lurssen has additionally retained its founder’s “disruptive” spirit.

The inspiration for our trade

Enterprise was booming for Friedrich Lurssen. The small shipyard in Bremen-Aumund turned a magnet not just for aggressive rowboats but in addition for craft in all types – workboats, motorboats, lifeboats and extra. Ever the disruptor, when Gottlieb Daimler – who invented and patented the petrol engine for a “horseless carriage” – approached Friedrich Lurssen with a request to construct the primary boat to be geared up with an engine, he instantly started working.

In the summertime of 1886, the world’s first motorboat was accomplished, laying the muse for our trade as we all know it right this moment. It was a six-metre masterpiece: superbly completed and a technical first, fitted with a modified 1.5-horsepower Daimler engine. 

Nonetheless, regardless of her elegantly styled slender bow that swept again into a large midsection and a well-formed stern, Rems induced chaos on the sometimes peaceable banks of the River Neckar near Stuttgart, the place Gottlieb Daimler had his workshop. Locals prevented the notorious engine that “was generated by explosions” from reaching the water’s edge for the primary check runs of Rems. Gottlieb Daimler put in copper wires and insulators to make the engine seem like an electrical plant. The ruse labored. The world’s first motorboat was efficiently examined, and the agitated locals have been none the wiser. 

The supply of the six-metre Rems paved the best way for motorboats. Lurssen and Daimler loved a protracted, fruitful friendship, constructing and creating ever-larger and ever-more-powerful motor-powered boats. At 19 metres, Maria-Augusta was one of many largest. She had a chic sheerline, canoe stern and a superstructure which built-in a pilothouse. Daimler constructed a 27-horsepower engine for her, delivering a clean nine-knot cruising velocity.

The motorboat was the primary in a protracted line of pioneering improvements launched by Lurssen, which have since turn into trade requirements. In 1997, it fitted the world’s first energy-efficient hybrid propulsion aboard the 96-metre Limitless. By 2002, the corporate was main analysis into underwater exhaust techniques, decreasing backpressure and noise. Shortly after, in 2005, it delivered the 90-metre Air (now Ice), the world’s first yacht with a pod drive. In 2009, Lurssen launched a complicated wastewater remedy system based mostly on membrane expertise, first used on the 60-metre Arkley (now Caipirinha) and now customary on all its yachts. The 147.52-metre Topaz (now A+) was additionally the primary to characteristic a ballast water remedy system. 

As a part of its drive in the direction of extra accountable and extra sustainable options, Lurssen patented an revolutionary exhaust after-treatment system that reduces nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions with out affecting area, weight, noise, or vibration. This has been customary on each Lurssen yacht since 2016. It launched Tesumo – a sustainable teak different – in 2020; that is now available to the trade.

Coinciding with its milestone 12 months, Lurssen is making ready to ship its subsequent step in the direction of an in the end carbon-neutral future for yachting: the 114-metre. Very similar to its 139-year predecessor, Rems, Cosmos was born from a pioneering and technologically pushed shopper, who has agreed to the set up of a methanol-powered gasoline cell system laid out to in the end produce sufficient energy to assist the yacht at anchor for 15 days or cruise roughly 1000 nautical miles at gradual velocity.

“We’ve got made super progress in the direction of reaching an necessary objective of mine,” says Peter Lurssen. “It was my great-grandfather who constructed the primary motorboat in 1886, paving the best way for yachting as we all know it right this moment. My dream is to in the end construct the primary yacht with out a combustion engine, marking the start of a brand new period for the trade.”

Since forming its devoted yacht division in 1988, it has constructed and delivered 70 bespoke yachts with a complete size exceeding 6,500 metres. At present, 35 of the highest 100 yachts are constructed by Lurssen. Amongst these are the 180.61-metre Azzam, the 156-metre Dilbar and the 126.2-metre Octopus – respectively, the world’s longest yacht, the most important yacht by quantity, and the world’s first explorer yacht. “We don’t got down to construct the largest yachts; we got down to construct the perfect yacht for every shopper. Purchasers select us for our engineering excellence, our capacity to assume exterior the field, and our willpower to fulfil their needs – regardless of how unreachable they might appear,” says Peter Lurssen.

The proprietor of the multi-award-winning 122-metre Kismet confirmed this dedication: “Lurssen’s place is easy: for those who can conceive it, they will do it, no constraints. I really like that. The shipyard hits each metric to perfection, particularly with expertise. The seaworthiness of Kismet is unimaginable, and I’m awestruck by the areas and workmanship. It’s all per Lurssen’s view that there ought to be no compromises on imaginative and prescient. And no compromises on expectations.”

Conservation and coaching pledges

At present, as the corporate appears to the long run, its imaginative and prescient stays aspirational. It has pledged to proceed its assist for Blue Marine Basis, via which it has supported 30 international tasks, securing commitments to guard over 4.4 million sq. kilometres of ocean. Its newly based Lurssen Basis will assist the coaching and improvement of choose engineering students who exhibit distinctive expertise, and spend money on startups and organisations making a constructive impression on the trade and wider communities.

Lurssen employs round 2,000 individuals and has three shipyards throughout northern Germany, an engineering and analysis centre in Croatia and a gross sales workplace in america. It specialises in new yacht building of 60 metres and bigger and operates an award-winning refit and rebuild shipyard with second-to-none services.

After 150 years of shipbuilding, Friedrich Lurssen’s declaration that “My agency shall be often called a pacesetter in each high quality and efficiency” stays true to today.