Foundation awards scholarships to the best ship mechanics in Germany

"It is all the more important today for the next generation of sailors in Germany to set themselves apart from other seafarers in terms of quality in international competition. This is why the foundation supports the German maritime schools with important donations in kind and top young talent with scholarships," said Richard von Berlepsch, Chairman of the foundation. "Even though maritime shipping is currently going through a difficult time, as one of the largest shipping nations in the world we need the next generation, both on board and in numerous professions on land."

"Over the past three years, my decision to train as a ship mechanic has increasingly proved to be the right one," says scholarship holder Lars Ecker from Gnarrenburg near Bremen.

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The 21-year-old ship mechanic completed his training at Hapag-Lloyd and is aiming to study marine engineering in Flensburg. He is also aware that German seafarers are facing international competition. "That's why my goal is to learn future-oriented developments and techniques in order to get the best possible starting position as a ship's engineer for a job in German maritime shipping." The German Seamen's School Foundation in Hamburg is supporting him with the scholarship.

The second scholarship winner, Leonhard Pfeiffer, comes from Berlin and completed his training as a ship mechanic at Bugsier Reederei in Hamburg. In March 2016, the 24-year-old began his nautical studies at the Jade University of Applied Sciences in Elsfleth. red

The German Seamen's School Hamburg was founded 154 years ago by several Hamburg shipowners, including Ferdinand Laeisz, Robert Miles Sloman Jr. and the first Hapag director Adolph Godeffroy. The background to this was the rapidly increasing demand for young nautical talent in those years. Not only were the Hamburg shipowners' fleets growing rapidly, the ships were also sailing to ever more distant destinations - to America, Africa or around the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The improved training of sailors was intended to ensure fewer accidents and losses at sea. In 1887, the German Seamen's School, originally founded as an "Actiengesellschaft", was transformed into an "independent foundation with legal capacity under civil law". Although the school's own teaching operations had to be discontinued in 1984, the foundation, as the legal successor to the Seemannsschule, still actively promotes the training of young nautical and technical talent at the seamen's schools from Rostock via Travemünde to Elsfleth on the Weser.