Today's focus is on ship and boat conversions, repairs, maintenance services, engine replacements, specialized welding in MIG, MAG, and TIG, as well as wood and fiberglass work on all technical levels for marine authorities, professional and recreational boating.

In recent decades, the Schiffswerft Laboe has developed into an absolute specialist in boat and yacht building. Through constant modernization of our facilities and ongoing training of our employees, we have first-class KNOW-HOW in the repair, maintenance, and conversion of boats and yachts. By embracing the guiding principle of our company, the "Full Service" concept, we are optimally positioned in the ancillary trades of yachting. All services related to boats are offered and executed in-house, enabling us to guarantee a high level of quality for our customers.

250 years of existence is a long time for a company. And a rarity. Only a few companies can look back on two and a half centuries. Not even all states. The thirteen British crown colonies in North America proclaimed their independence from the English crown in 1776 - 15 years after Preetz's monastery provost granted the smith Hans Arpe the right to run a forge in Brodersdorf. The United Nations now has around 190 sovereign member states, and only a few of them have existed for more than a hundred years.

Even among the still active German companies, 250 years of company history are the absolute exception. Nationwide, it may be around 50 according to a Creditreform table. In the shipyard industry, this only includes the Hamburg shipyard J.J. Sietas, which was founded in 1635. All of this is less than the tip of the iceberg. It's a pin head.

The comparison of a village smithy or a medium-sized company with states may be lagging, but in the time dimension it shows the historical, political and economic environment in which we move when we consider the eventful history of a company. It is not a "lonely planet" that exists independently on its own. A company is involved in the course of time with its politics and economy, with peace and wars, it is dependent on its customers and not least on its owners and employees. All of this is mutually dependent.

The Brodersforfer Schmiedekate was the primordial cell of today's "Schiffswerft Laboe", which has transformed into a modern company in 250 years, in which boat building, yacht service and a marina have found their place. A company is characterized by change and flexibility if it exists yesterday, today and in the future. The word "traditional company", however, only makes sense if tradition is understood as pride in one's origin and as an incentive to face the present and to constantly change with it. Much in early history must remain unsaid. The sources are more than poor. The smithy appeared for the first time in the annals of the Preetz monastery in 1771, only to disappear into the darkness of history for a good 100 years. And the recent history of the Laboe shipyard between the company's founding in 1900 and the end of the Second World War remains little documented for a long time because the documents are no longer available.

It was only at the beginning of the 50s of the 20th century that we got a vivid picture of a company that has shaped Laboe and its economy for 100 years and that has its permanent place here today. It is an important part of the maritime heritage and the present of Laboe and beyond that, of the entire region. And that's how it should be in the future.

- Jürgen Rohweder
Laboe in March 2011