The Special research ship Ekteshaft (1984). The yard model of the „Ekteshaf“ on a scale of 1:100 is part of our marine science exhibition on deck 7 of the museum.
The special research vessel „Ekteshaf“ was built in 9 months at the Jansen shipyard in Leer, East Frisia, in 1984. The ship was commissioned by the NIOC (National Iranian Oil Company) and entered service the following year. Its tasks include, on the one hand, the installation and maintenance of pipelines and, on the other hand, geological underwater research in connection with oil production. As far as we know, the vessel is still in active service under the Iranian flag and has never changed hands. However, it has been chartered out to other companies for projects and temporarily sailed under the flag of Belize for at least the first half of the 2010s.
The Jansen shipyard had been founded in 1926 as a family business. The company became known from the 1950s onwards for building coastal freighters and later for building specialized vessels. The shipyard grew and was successful even during the crisis that hit the shipbuilding sector in the first half of the 1980s. Nevertheless, the shipyard had to file for bankruptcy at the end of 1987. After a major construction project was cancelled by Iran, the company ran into financial difficulties. However, the West German state refused to support the shipyard at that moment because the company’s balance sheets had been falsified by a sum of 7.5 million marks.