The bulk carrier Malmland (1974-1997). The 1:100 scale yard model of the Malmland is part of our exhibition on the history of modern maritime logistics on deck 6 of the museum.
The bulk carrier Malmland was built in 1974 at the Flender shipyard in Lübeck (northern Germany).
The shipyard had been founded in 1917 as a branch of Brückenbau Flender AG from Benrath near Düsseldorf. In 1926 it became a completely independent shipyard. The Flender-Werke (original name of the shipyard, used until 1973) produced a total of 42 submarines for the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) between 1940 and 1944. After the Second World War, the shipyard successfully built merchant and passenger ships. In the 1950s, the company employed up to 4,000 workers. The shipyard suffered severely from the shipping crisis in the 1970s and drastically reduced its workforce to 600. Nevertheless, it continued to build ships until 2002, when it had to file for bankruptcy.
The „Malmland“ was originally built for the shipping company Broström Rederi from Gothenburg. The roots of the Broström Group can be traced back to 1865. Just like the Lübeck shipyard, its business flourished in the years after the Second World War, when it owned up to a third of the entire Swedish merchant fleet. They too suffered from the crisis of the 1970s and saw their business decline. The A. P. Møller-Mærsk Group bought Broström in 2008.
The „Malmland“ was a so-called „Panamax ship“. This means that she could just sail through the old Panamá Canal before its expansion (completed in 2016). She was 250 meters long, 32.5 meters wide and had a displacement of 78,500 DWT (dead weight tons). From 1978 onwards, the „Malmland“ was sold and renamed several times (first to „Liberian Homer Transporters“ as „Golden Cameo“, to „Star Value SH Co., Liberia“, as „Mistral“ in 1982, to „Anchorage Nav Co., Cyprus“ as „Albion I“ in 1992 and to „P A Lemos Ltd“, Cyprus as „MV Mactrader“ in 1993. In 1997 after 23 years of service the ship was finally scrapped in India.