Scheepswerf De Hoop

Lobith is situated on the spot where the ancient Batavii, famous for their courage and tenacity as well as for their trustworthiness, landed on Dutch soil. Here, ships have been built continuously throughout the centuries. In 1886, the first shipyard was established.

This yard was completely destroyed during World War Two, but although the capital elements of the shipyard: the offices, cranes, working premises and engines were lost, the spiritual heritage, the traditional knowledge and skill handed down from on generation to another, has survived.

After the war, when De Hoop yard was rebuilt with modern equipment this heritage was realised with improved skills producing beautiful, modern ships with highly sophisticated specifications.

In 1991 mr. Jan Reint Hoving Smit took over the yard. Mr. Smit led the yard into a new direction. From then on, the focus was to be on creating added value for the customer. To be able to do this, mr. Fré Drenth was hired as deputy director. The yard partly focussed on the inland passenger market, and was able to achieve a very strong position in that market. In the meantime, the yard also continued to build sea-going ships, such as the containership "Carmen Dolores".

In January 1999, the former Verolme Shipyards Heusden was acquired by De Hoop International. These two yards complement each other well, and together they can accept even more and bigger projects, or build ships with an even shorter delivery time.

In 2001, De Hoop acquired the shipyard Houma Fabricators in Houma, Louisiana, USA. This way, the De Hoop group has a prime access to the American offshore market. This translated into a series of orders for various offshore suppliers, some of which were built on the Dutch yards, and some in the USA.

Although De Hoop is strongest in the markets named above, virtually any ship can be completely engineered and built by De Hoop. Examples of this are the transport vessels "Brion" and "Breuil" built for Airbus, the cable layer "Sea Spider" built for Wagenborg and the semi-submersible diving platform "Amethyst".