Page 14: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (November 2013)

14 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News ? NOVEMBER 2013 ONE ON ONE DR. HERBERT ALY, BLOHM + VOSS How does the today?s structure looks like? After the takeover of the civil- ian ship building activities by Star Capi-tal Partners as the new owner, basically we have two divisions: newbuild and repair. Blohm+Voss Shipyards GmbH for the complete new building activities and the Blohm+Voss Repair GmbH for repair and modiÞ cation. Both divisions support each other. The shipyards core business is on the one hand the modiÞ -cation and repair of ships and offshore units as well as the building of premi-um-segment yachts. At new buildings Blohm+Voss works as a subcontractor for ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems dur- ing the next years, among others, on frig-ate orders for the German Navy. Which strategies promise success against yards in the Far East? At Blohm+Voss we will, and this is very essential, concentrate on megayachts. Here we have, as men-tioned before, a long tradition. Certainly, we have to anticipate that somewhere in the future also luxury yachts will be built in China (as indicators already suggest). Fortunately customers in this segment still have a substantial brand conscious-ness. The customer wants to have an up- market quality product out of Germany ? and this is what we offer. Still we have here a technology and brand advantage. That means for us we have to assert our- selve on this particular market with high-est quality and excellence.How is your current order situation? We have one megayacht in pro- duction which is in the outÞ tting phase. We are shortly to receive an order for another luxury yacht. Furthermore we are working on different yacht projects which are coming into near decision with the customers. With the repair situ- ation we can be absolutely satisÞ ed ? our capacity in this regard is being fully uti-lized. Of course, we cannot look into the future and beg reassured, particularly as the repair sector is too volatile.If you could make two wishes for Blohm+Voss, what would it be? First unlimited Þ nancial guar- antees for our business, because it is for the time being, one of the big problems for the whole branch to receive Þ nancing or, as in our case, even refund guarantees for down-payments from banks. Oth-ers, such as insurance companies, have to Þ ll the gap. And on the other hand a more steady capacity utilization, in other words: it would be a big challenge for us, if two yacht orders came into the house exactly at the same time which should be processed totally in parallel.A Þ nal private question: how and where does Dr. Herbert Aly relax? Dr. Aly points towards a large photo on the wall in his ofÞ ce and smiles: ?Look at this, this is my passion. Unfortunately I sail this beautiful schoo-ner very seldom ? at least I could make it to sail it 10 days in this year. On top of this, I own a catamaran and dragon on the Alster ? if it can be leisurely I use the dragon but with stronger wind I take the cat. But as mentioned: unfortunately I do not have enough time to practice this beautiful sport.Diversity is a staple at Blohm+Voss. Starting right and rotating clockwise are: Super Yacht Palladium built by Blohm+Voss. One of Europe?s largest dry docks, Blohm+Voss? Dock Elbe 17, with a total length of 352m.MV Charlotta Star during repair/underwater painting in one of Blohm+Voss?  oating docks. German Navy?s Frigate in one of Blohm+Voss? sheltered docks. MR #11 (10-17).indd 14MR #11 (10-17).indd 1411/11/2013 11:24:32 AM11/11/2013 11:24:32 AM