René Taudal Poulsen

Downfall delayed: Danish shipbuilding and industrial dislocation

This article analyses the decline of the Danish shipbuilding industry. European shipyards dominated global shipbuilding markets in the first half of the twentieth century, but began to be challenged by the Japanese from the 1950s and by the South Koreans from the late 1970s. More recently, China has taken over large slices of the global shipbuilding market and currently is the worlds largest shipbuilding nation. As a result of this new competition, European shipyards closed en masse and Europe experienced a process of maritime deindustrialisation in the 1970s and 1980s. Danish shipyards were not immune to these challenges, although maritime deindustrialisation in this country was almost two decades later than in many other European countries. This article examines how Denmark was able to escape this general maritime deindustrialisation for so long and offers three explanations: institutional, entrepreneurial and political.

What Can Fisheries Historians Learn from Marine Science? The Concept of Catch per Unit Effort (CPUE):

Fisheries historians can learn a great deal from marine science. If properly applied, methodologies commonly used by fisheries biologists can enrich fisheries history and offer completely new insights to maritime historians. This article will discuss how one powerful set of analytical tools from fisheries biology can clarify central concepts within the field of fisheries history. 1 For many years, historians have examined structural changes in the fisheries, both in national and international contexts. Their growth and decline have fascinated historians, and economic, political, social and technological aspects have been analysed to explain their fluctuations. Recently, the marine environment has also received attention since fishermens success ultimately depends on fish abundances. European, North American and Asian historians have argued that nineteenthand twentieth-century fishermen introduced more efficient gear and sailed to more distant waters in order to increase their catching power and maintain profitable fisheries. Thus, fishing effort was increased to counteract the effects of declining fish stocks. 2

Liner Shipping and Technological Innovation: Ostasiat and the Container Revolution, 1963–75

Abstract This article examines the implications of technological innovation on liner shipping. In the 1960s and early 1970s, containerisation revolutionised liner shipping. The article asks how a well-established liner company, AB Svenska Ostasiatiska Kompaniet, responded to the challenges of the container revolution. Despite being a late mover, Svenska Ostasiatiska Kompaniet nevertheless successfully adapted its liner network to the container technology. The basic argument is that organisational changes paved the way for Svenska Ostasiatiska Kompaniets successful transition from conventional liner shipping to container shipping. Before the container revolution, Svenska Ostasiatiska Kompaniet had gained valuable cooperative experiences in a joint venture with a Norwegian and a Danish liner company. These organisational experiences were crucial to the survival of the Scandinavian lines in liner shipping in a time of technological change.Abstract This article examines the implications of technological innovation on liner shipping. In the 1960s and early 1970s, containerisation revolutionised liner shipping. The article asks how a well-established liner company, AB Svenska Ostasiatiska Kompaniet, responded to the challenges of the container revolution. Despite being a late mover, Svenska Ostasiatiska Kompaniet nevertheless successfully adapted its liner network to the container technology. The basic argument is that organisational changes paved the way for Svenska Ostasiatiska Kompaniets successful transition from conventional liner shipping to container shipping. Before the container revolution, Svenska Ostasiatiska Kompaniet had gained valuable cooperative experiences in a joint venture with a Norwegian and a Danish liner company. These organisational experiences were crucial to the survival of the Scandinavian lines in liner shipping in a time of technological change.

The Two Declines of Swedish Shipping

Over the last five decades the structure of the shipping industry has changed dramatically, and in this process numerous players and countries have declined, while others have prospered. Sweden, once home to vibrant shipping and shipbuilding industries, is a prime example of a maritime centre in decline. In 1960 Swedish shipping companies controlled approximately 2.9 per cent of the world fleet, but after 1973 the Swedish position was heavily eroded. By 2010 the figure was well below 1 per cent, and the Swedish industry itself currently anticipates a further decline (Sveriges Redareforening, 2010). A comparison of the structure of the industry in the late 1950s with the 2010 situation clearly demonstrates the magnitude of the decline.

The Transformation of Swedish Shipping, 1970–2010

Since the early 1970s, as shipping has undergone a period of structural change, Swedish shipping has rapidly declined from a position of global importance. The Swedish-controlled fleet has dwindled ...

‘Knowing the Ropes’: Capability Reconfiguration and Restructuring of the Danish Shipping Industry

The development of Danish shipping over the 50 years from 1960 to 2010 has been characterized by an overall fleet growth. However, there have been important dips disrupting the general development, some of which have been long-lasting and had distressing results for individual entrepreneurs. Half a century ago, around 1960, Denmark owned about 1.75 per cent of the world fleet and Danish shipping companies engaged successfully in all the main shipping segments. A decade later, Danish shipping proved more resilient to the downturn in world shipping markets than its Nordic competitors. The survival rate for Danish companies was higher than that in Sweden and Norway. In the mid-1980s shipowners cut costs and started reflagging their ships into open registries. Throughout the 1990s Danish shipping was in the doldrums, as it were, with some companies prospering and others failing spectacularly. In the initial decade of the twenty-first century Danish shipping companies proved able to exploit the global growth opportunities created by the demand-driven upswing in North America and South East Asia. By the end of the period covered in our analysis Danish shipping proved more successful than ever, controlling almost 5 per cent of the world fleet in 2008 and, according to the Danish Shipowners’ Association (Danmarks Rederiforening, 2010), carrying 10 per cent of world trade as measured in terms of the value of the goods carried.

British Box Business: A history of OCL

Mountbatten’s ‘88’ Navy in the Duncan Sandys era reflected the personnel strength of the fleet (88,000) fleet not its strength in ships. It is, at best, misleading to say that ‘the Americans made their first launch of a ballistic missile in 1959’. Their first potentially submarine launched ballistic missile, Polaris, was indeed tested ashore in 1959 but it was hardly the first American ballistic missile launch. Moreover, it is hard to see why USS George Washington was not the first ‘true’ American ballistic missile firing submarine. She had indeed been converted while under construction to speed her entry into service, but she was real enough when she made her first underwater launches and embarked on her first patrol in 1960. The carrier Victorious did not land commandos in the Kuwait crisis. She came up in support, but the troops came only from Bulwark and it was not Victorious but Centaur that was used to put down the East African mutinies in 1964. Discussion of the Soviet aircraft carrying cruiser/carrier programmes is inadequate, as is the development of the US/NATO Forward Maritime Strategy in the 1980s. The American battleships were not recommissioned in the 1980s as answers to the Soviet Kirovs. The Argentine carrier did play an important role in the Falklands War, her A-4Q Skyhawks posing a potent threat in its early stages. Two Iranian frigates, not destroyers, were respectively destroyed and seriously disabled by the Americans in Operation Praying Mantis. The contemporary US carrier force is not so operational as the book says; at the time of writing this review only two carrier strike groups are at sea. Black also gets rather mixed up (although he is in good company here) with the exact meaning of US ship designations. The implication that the new Chinese amphibious transport dock (LPD) is in some respects a copy of contemporary American LPDs is not really fair. All LPDs look the same because of their role and the Chinese ships have some novel features. There are three Japanese Osumi class LSDs not just the Kunisaki and these ships are in no way similar to the 19 US sealift roros to which they are compared. It was largely the Russians not the Indians themselves who converted the Vikramadiya (former Admiral Gorshkov) into a proper carrier. The Chinese anti carrier missile is the DF-21D not ‘DF-21F’ and the YJ-83 anti-ship missile does not travel at ‘nine times the speed of sound’ but Mach 0.9! There is a last particular curiosity. At the end there is a small section on naval films that has a very strange take on the film Battleship of 2012. The enemy in the film is clearly alien from space, not Chinese or North Korean! Moreover, the veterans manning the ship are not visitors but the staff looking after Missouri as a museum ship. I could go on. These errors do not completely undermine the book, but they should not be there and it is surprising they were not corrected by the author’s several readers. They detract from one aim of the work, to provide an introduction to the subject for the more general reader. Nevertheless, the overall arguments of the book are of significance and should not be ignored by naval historians. One hopes the book will contribute to a new broader approach to the subject. I also hope that Professor Black will not consider this view too ‘hostile’. It was not intended to be. eric grove BlackPool http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00253359.2018.1454149

Corporate Strategies and Global Competition: Odense Steel Shipyard, 1918-2012

This article analyzes the competitive strategies of Odense Steel Shipyard between 1918 and 2012 and challenges existing scholarship on competition in global industries. Until the 1980s, the yard adopted typical strategies in shipbuilding, starting with cost leadership and subsequently adopting global segmentation and differentiation strategies. From the mid-1980s, however, it successfully followed a unique national responsiveness strategy, which scholars including Dong Sung Cho and Michael E. Porter had ruled out in shipbuilding. The article shows how shipyard owners shaped strategies and influenced competitiveness.

Book Review: The Official History of North Sea Oil and Gas

resolving the problems these generate, in particular that ofenvironmental pollution. This text provides an up-to-date contribution to this increasingly topical debate amongst the very many others relevant to maritime economics in general, both shipping and ports. The range of topics covered is to be admired and these include economic issues stemming from flagging, freight rate predictions and modelling, the issues of futures, technical discussions and their economic implications, the role of mergers and acquisitions, the role of supply chain management and its relationship to maritime economics, issues of port and shipping competition, the impact of economics on maritime logistics, the significance of maritime externalities and a variety of other issues. The quality of contribution is good with a series of contributors well known in the maritime economics field and from highly respected institutions and businesses. At times there is a tendency for the argument and discussion to be lost in a mass ofdata, the contribution by Benamara, Hoffmann and Valentine being one such example in their discussion of key developments in maritime trade, business and markets. Further development ofthe themes that these data suggest would have helped the reader appreciate the value ofthe historical data provided. A similar comment relating to the excellent paper by Kavussanos and Tsekrekos on flag choice can also be made where the detailed model used is entirely appropriate but would benefit from considerably greater discussion of its implications for the industry. This is also the case with the paper by Veenstra and Van Dalen on freight rate indices which again provides a detailed and very specific model but fails to develop the argument which this suggests to the extent that it deserves. David Glens contribution on modelling the impact ofdouble-hulled tankers on oil spill numbers addresses these issues of interpretation and discussion much better, providing both detailed model and data manipulation as well as a wide consideration of the meaning of the model results. This is also the case with the assessment by Alizadeh and Nomikos of risk management in ship operations. A particularly interesting contribution is that by Woo and Pettit considering port performance in changing logistics environments which provides a very useful discussion ofport efficiency measures along with model development and a wide discussion of the implications. Overall this is a useful text, particularly for postgraduate students of maritime affairs and those studying for research degrees. It fills a major gap in the literature and whilst over-dependent on the generation ofeconomic models at the expense ofdiscussion and context, it remains a valuable addition to the literature. It is a maritime economics book throughout and as such will have only limited interest for those who are essentially looking for maritime history but where these two disciplines overlap as they do in some of the papers where an historical context is presented, then it is clearly of some interest.