Meyer Werft Shipyard

Meyer Werft GmbH

Type	Private
Industry	Shipbuilding
Founded	1795
Headquarters	Papenburg, Germany
Key people	Bernard Meyer, CEO
Products	cruise ships tankers carriers ferries research vessels
Number of employees	~5,150 (2015)
Parent	Meyer Neptun Group
Website	www.meyerwerft.com

The Meyer Werft GmbH is one of the major German shipyards, headquartered in Papenburg at the river Ems. Founded in 1795 and starting with small wooden vessels, today Meyer Werft is one of world's leading builders of luxury passenger ships. Altogether about 700 ships of different types have been built at the yard. Its "Dockhalle 2" is the largest shipbuilding hall and the building with the fifth largest usable space in the world.

Meyer Werft has been owned and managed by the Meyer family for six generations. Since 1997, it has been part of the Meyer Neptun Group together with Neptun Werft in .

The shipyard is an anchor on the European Route of Industrial Heritage.

The shipyard was founded at the beginning of 1795 by Willm Rolf Meyer as a wharf for the construction of small wooden vessels. Josef Lambert Meyer started the construction of iron ships in 1874. Until 1920 there were more than 20 dockyards in the Papenburg area. Today, Meyer Werft is the only remaining shipyard in Papenburg. For more than six generations, it has been a privately held and family-owned company.

Meyer Werft gained international recognition through the construction of roll on/roll off ferries, passenger ferries, gasoline tankers, container ships, livestock ferries and most recently luxury cruise ships.

Meyer is one of the largest and most modern shipyards in the world with 2500 employees, and home to the largest roofed dry docks in the world. The first covered dock was inaugurated in 1987 and was 370 meters long, 101,5 meters wide and 60 meters high. In 1990/91 the dock was extended by an additional 100 meters. In 2004, a second covered dock was built, which is announced to be extended to a full length of 504 meters, a width of 125 meters and height of 75 meters in order to compete with Asian shipyards. Meyer Werft will as a result of this be able to build three cruise ships a year. Due to its upstream location on the river Ems, the giant ships to be delivered have to make a 36 km voyage to the Dollart bay and which each time attracts thousands of spectators. Up until the completion of the Ems river barrier ("Emssperrwerk") in 2002, the journey was only possible at high tides.