Sietas and its ships / Bernard McCall.

"The shipyard of J J Sietas is arguably one of the best-known in northern Europe. It was founded in 1653 and from its inception, the company was continuously owned by the founding family. This was the ninth generation by 2009. The first vessels were made out of wood but this changed to steel from the early 20th century. By 2009 the shipyard was experiencing financial difficulties due to rising steel prices, the rapid fall in demand for container ships and miscalculation fo costs. The global recession led to cancelled orders and the shipyard's largest creditor, HSH Nordbank, took over management in early March 2009, the first time the company had been managed by someone outside of the founding family since 1635. The yard continued to experience financial problems until April 2014 when it became part of the Pella group, a Russian company owned by the Tsaturof family. They yard is now known as Pella Sietas Werft. It was in the mid-1950s when production was starting to increase that a decision was made to classify the vessels according to types. At first letters were used, so in 1955 six examples of the Type HG were built, named after the Hertha Gerdau. Type A and Type F also appeared before it was decided to adopt a numerical scheme beginning with Karin in 1958. This scheme has continued to the present day. It should be understood that the yard was building several different types at the same time. Especially in the 1970s, it was unable to keep up with demand and several vessels were subcontracted to the Norderwerft shipyard in Hamburg. In this book we shall be concentrating on cargo ships but other types will also appear to illustrate the variety of ships that were built. We have realised that two volumes will be needed to cover the various types.