Lürssen

Lürssen (or Lürssen Werft) is a German shipyard with headquarters in Bremen-Vegesack and shipbuilding facilities in Lemwerder, Berne and Bremen-Fähr-Lobbendorf.

Lürssen designs and constructs yachts, naval ships and special vessels. Trading as Lürssen Yachts, it is one of the leading builders of custom superyachts such as Paul Allen's Octopus, David Geffen's Rising Sun, and Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan's Azzam, the second largest private yacht in the world at 180 m in length after the REV Ocean.[2][3]

History

On 27 June 1875 the 24 year-old Friedrich Lürssen set up a boatbuilding workshop in Aumund, a suburb of Bremen, Germany. The focus of work in the first years was on work boats for fishing and ferry operations. Hull number one was a five meter long rowboat.

Naval Vessels Lürssen

(NVL) was the military division of Lürssen, and builds small to medium size naval vessels, mainly for exporting. In September 2025 it was announced that NVL had been bought by German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall as part of its conglomeration of German defence production.[12] Naval Vessels Lürssen (NVL) operates four shipyards in northern Germany.[13][14]

History of naval shipbuilding by NVL

Naval ships built by Lürssen in the past include:

Many E-boats of World War II, based on Lürssen's design for Otto Hermann Kahn's private yacht Oheka II
World War II R boat minesweepers, including the first minesweeper (1929) fitted with a Voith Schneider propeller (R8)
Jaguar-class fast attack craft
Seeadler-class fast attack craft
Zobel-class fast attack craft
Intrépida-class fast attack craft
Tiger-class fast attack craft
Frankenthal-class minehunter
Kılıç-class fast attack craft, 1988 to Turkey
Darussalam-class offshore patrol vessel, Brunei
Victory-class corvette

Australian Navy ships

Lürssen has the contract to design and build twelve (reduced to six) Arafura-class offshore patrol vessels for Australia.[15] Construction of the first two will be in Adelaide by ASC Pty Ltd. The remaining four will be constructed in Western Australia by Civmec.

Lürssen was awarded a $2.6 billion contract in 2017 to build twelve patrol boats for the Australian Navy. Work began in Adelaide in mid-2018. Lürssen was the general contractor and was responsible for the design, construction management and the overall manufacturing process. The first "Offshore Patrol Vessel" (OPV) was commissioned in 2025 and replaced the Royal Australian Navy's former Armidale-class vessels.[16]

Bulgarian Navy ships

In 2021 NVL started building two multi-purpose patrol ships for the Bulgarian Navy, in collaboration with MTG Dolphin Shipyard in Varna.[17]

German Navy ships

Braunschweig class

NVL Lürssen has been involved with the building of Braunschweig-class corvettes since 2004.

Baden-Württemberg class

NVL is part of the ARGE F125 joint-venture enterprise designing and building the Baden-Württemberg-class frigates since 2011.

Class 424

German Navy wanted to replace its SIGINT ships of Oste class 423 by three new ships of class 424. In June 2021, the Bundestag approved the development and procurement of three auxiliary ships as well as a training and reference reconnaissance facility (ARAA) for sea-based signal detection reconnaissance (ssA). As the main contractor, Lürssen was commissioned to develop the systems by February 2023. All services should be completed by 2029. The first of the three boats is scheduled to be put into service in 2027 and will mark the replacement of the fleet service boats Oker, Alster and Oste from the 1980this.[18]

Braunschweig class

NVL Lürssen has been involved with the building of Braunschweig-class corvettes since 2004.

Baden-Württemberg class

NVL is part of the ARGE F125 joint-venture enterprise designing and building the Baden-Württemberg-class frigates since 2011.

Class 424

When concluding the contract with Naval Vessels Lürssen (NVL) in June 2021, the Federal Audit Office, Bundesrechnungshof reported “significant concerns”. It criticized the fact that the Ministry of Defense only wanted to discuss with the shipyard after the contract had been signed how exactly the ships should be built. "Billions were awarded blindly and a very bad negotiating situation," wrote the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The Federal Audit Office feared "additional expenditure in the medium term."[19]

In 2023, the ships only existed vaguely and sketchily on paper. The new building increased in price from 2.1 billion euros to 3.3 billion euros (2023).[18]

type	GmbH
industry	Shipbuilding
founded	1875
founder	Friedrich Lürssen
hq location city	Bremen-Vegesack
hq location country	Germany
area served	Worldwide
key people	Peter Lürssen (CEO)
products	Yachts
revenue	€1.83 billion
num employees	1,935
divisions	Fr. Lürssen Werft Lürssen Logistics Lürssen Yachts Lürssen Schacht-Audorf (Rendsburg) Lürssen Berne-Bardenfleth
homepage	www.luerssen.de
footnotes	Slogan: my firm shall be known as the leader in both quality and performance. (Friedrich Lürssen, 1875)

History

Yachts

Naval Vessels Lürssen

History of naval shipbuilding by NVL

Australian Navy ships

Bulgarian Navy ships

German Navy ships

Braunschweig class

Baden-Württemberg class

Class 424

Braunschweig class

Baden-Württemberg class

Class 424

Gallery

Yachts

Warships

See also

External links

References