Archive for: Timeline Stories

A painted full color artist impression of a singledeck coaster decorated the front page of our 1967 newsletter. This type of vessel became the Groninger ship par excellence from the early 1920s untill the mid-70s. The relatively small ships, with a loading capacity of 300-500 tonnes, could be built at the shipyards in the province of Groningen, where they slid sideways down from the slipway in the Winschoterdiep, Damsterdiep and Eemskanaal.

Standard ship design

Many inland shippers in those early days felt the need to leave the inland waterways and use ships for bringing and picking up freight from Germany, Denmark and Sweden. From this need, ships were designed that were seaworthy but could also deliver cargo, as it were, to the door.

Due to their shallow draught, coasters could enter all small ports. The hinterland was also accessible via canals and rivers. In short, coasters were inland vessels and seaworthy vessels in one.

Many shipyards in the Netherlands and Germany adopted the basic design of the Groninger coasters and considered it a standard. English competitors called the Groninger coasters ‘little grey devils’.

Containers appeared in the mid-70s

In the mid-70s, this type of ship was no longer needed, another type of ship was required, and containers appeared.

Most of them were scrapped, dozens were converted into sand dredgers, a few ended up in southern waters and the really lucky ones among these coasters were converted into radio broadcasting ships.

Many hundreds of Groningen coasters from that time were scrapped after spending their last years in Greek waters or in the Caribbean.
Conoship has remained active in the design of vessels for this trade throughout it’s lifetime. The size of the vessels increased, but the ideas remained the same; pragmatic and versatile vessels with low fuel consumption.

Below is the painted full color artist impression of a singledeck coaster by Frans Naerebout, which decorated the front page of our 1967 newsletter.

We were digging through the archives of Conoship International, when we found a rather compelling story. This anecdote gives use some interesting insight into the history of our company, and just how much times have changed. The story tells of our early relationship with China, a country where many of our most respected clients are based today. It recounts a group of Chinese delegates visiting Conoship to exchange knowledge and experience. It’s a tale about international relationships, ignorance, trust, and miscommunication, that shows us just how much our perspectives have changed over the last 50 years. It paints a picture of the developing world of international business. Here is the full story:

SORRY, MR.  KING

We were informed that almost all our guests exclusively spoke Chinese. We considered doing a crash course in Chinese, but there simply wasn’t enough time for that. In order to present the “Conoship story” we came up with the idea to have the text translated into Chinese.

But who could translate this text at such short notice? After some searching, we found Mr. King, the owner of a very good restaurant in Groningen. We asked him to translate the document, and luckily, he happily obliged. 

He stretched a large sheet of rice paper on his writing table, picked out a bamboo stick with a good, sharp point and produced a beautiful work of art (see photo). When he handed it over to us, we were very pleased with it. 

We got to talking, and he shared some of his experiences from his home country. Mr. King turned out to be a supporter of the Nationalist Chiang Kai-shek regime. This regime is in opposition with Communist China. This didn’t seem to bother Mr. King: in the end, he said, Chinese people all over the world always help each other. Nevertheless, we were a little worried. We were afraid that Mr. King may have inserted a political message into his translation. 

The next day, when we presented the translation to the Chinese delegates, we cautiously asked the translator to check the text to see if it was okay. Luckily, it appeared to be all good.  “Excellent,” he commented. “A story with class!” We gave each of the delegation members a copy of the story, rolled up and held together by a neat red ribbon. The delegation was very surprised by our reception, and they thanked us extensively afterwards in a letter. It was even suggested there might be more opportunities to cooperate in the future. We’ll just have to wait and see what the future will bring.

Afterwards we thought about the story, Mr. King, and our unjustified mistrust. So we would like to apologize to Mr. King, and we hope to dine at your restaurant again soon. In fact, we would be honoured to!

This story showcases just how difficult it used to be for businesses to network. It’s hard to imagine now how challenging it was just to translate a text into Chinese. Nowadays, we can translate almost anything with a few taps on our phone. What’s more interesting, however, is that despite the generosity and helpfulness of the restaurant owner, the Dutch still had trouble trusting him. The huge gap between our cultures and the political tension at play back then made us sceptical. 

Nowadays, we communicate with Chinese business partners on an almost daily basis and a large proportion of our designs are brought to life in China. So fortunately, the “opportunities to cooperate in the future” worked out.

Starting with the development of the ConoDuctTail in 2012, this decade is fully dedicated to further improving fuel efficiency through research and development. Other noteworthy events are winning the KNVTS Maritime Award in 2015 for Walk to Work vessel Kroonborg and in 2019 for the eConowind-unit.

       
ConoDuctTail  (2012)                                       Walk to Work Vessel (2015)                               Econowind-units (2019)

ConoDuctTail

With the ConoDuctTail the propulsive efficiency is maximized by optimizing an aft ship shape with a duct, a nozzle and a propeller with a large diameter. The optimized ducted-tunnel design results in a considerable reduction of fuel consumption and emissions.

Walk to Work vessel Kroonborg

Based on the statement “a changing offshore world demands an innovative vessel” Conoship developed for, and in close cooperation with Royal Wagenborg and Royal Niestern Sander a new type of specialized offshore support and maintenance “Walk to Work” (W2W) vessel, named Kroonborg.

eConowind-unit

The eConowind-unit is an easy-to-mount unit to enable wind assisted propulsion for existing and new cargo ships. Market introduction started in 2019 and several ships are now sailing with it, achieving fuel savings of 20% to even 50%.