For Christmas, Spain provides new life to the Titanic shipyards | EUROtoday

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Arriving in Belfast from the airport, not even essentially the most distracted traveler may help however discover the 2 immense yellow cranes towering over the bay. It’s an overhead crane and you may learn two gigantic letters: H&W. It is the acronym of Harland&Wolff, a very powerful shipyard within the metropolis, the capital of Northern Ireland.

From slipway quantity 3 on the marina known as Queen’s Island, in 1911, the Titanic was lowered into the ocean. At the time it was the most important ocean liner on this planet, but it surely was short-lived. After only a 12 months, essentially the most well-known passenger boat in historical past sank, taking 1,500 individuals with it. Even the Belfast shipyard, which has been in disaster for many years, risked sinking, however an sudden rescue arrived simply earlier than Christmas: Spain will purchase the corporate. For the 1,500 employees who risked a black Christmas with out work, it’s the finest present.

From the battle to the Titanic

The locals affectionately name the 2 cranes Samson and Goliath: not solely as a result of they’re immense and may be seen from nearly each nook of town however as a result of they’re additionally the driving pressure of town: the shipyard was for over a century the most important employer and the commercial coronary heart of depressed Ulster: there, within the mid-Nineteenth century, the London authorities determined to construct development websites exactly to supply work and produce prosperity. Under the reign of Queen Victoria, H&W grew to become Britain’s largest naval shipbuilder, producing 1,600 ships. At the time there was nonetheless an empire to defend and the fleet was the satisfaction of the nation: the majority of His Majesty’s fleet, till the First World War, got here out of that immense maritime workshop, which occupied an space of ​​32 hectares .

Crisis & rescue

For a while, nevertheless, the overhead crane had been working much less and fewer: already in 2019, the staff (diminished to a couple thousand in comparison with the 35 thousand within the heyday) had gone underneath the Stormont palace, residence of the “parliament” of Northern Ireland, to ask for the re-nationalization of the group. The authorities supplied £200 million in funding. which prolonged the lifetime of H&W for some time. Last summer time, then, the ultimate tile: the federal government of the Falklands Islands had backtracked on a 120 million order, placing the shipyards confronted with the specter of insolvency.

The staff remaining on the development website, which in recent times had been transformed to the development of blades for wind farms, will now come underneath the management of the Spanish holding Navantia. The negotiations, which have been underway for a while, are nearing completion.