108
MARKKU KANERVA:
I said back in the day that I would
retire when we had sold 100 B.Deltas.
By the time I retired, we had sold 106.
We came out with the product in 2008,
and the breakthrough occurred in
2010 when there was a real bulker boom.
The B.Delta was so much ahead of its time
that people found it hard to believe us, but it became
a game changer. Most of the existing designs on the
market became obsolete. B.Delta was really “Leading
the Way”. That design has taken Deltamarin far. It was
the outcome of excellent teamwork, the best possible
partners and, in particular, experienced and committed
people with an innovative mindset. The B.Deltas helped
us to reach an even better position in the Chinese
shipbuilding market with other ship types as well. The
product range is wider than ever, covering almost all
ship types including offshore vessels and units. The
services covered are in accordance with the vision set
in the early days of Deltamarin, covering the full life
cycle of practically any marine product.
I’m glad the sale of the company was successful. The
price was a fair one and the new owner also helped to
get major contracts indirectly and directly.
Deltamarin is doing very well nowadays. The
Chinese owners have done exactly as promised and
haven’t interfered with Deltamarin’s activities.
When we started out in 1990, people used to ask
where we had put all the senior employees. The
average age was very low back then. These
days Deltamarin has younger and older
employees alike. It’s been interesting to
hear that when people leave and go to
shipowners like Finnlines and RCCL, the
shipowners tell us that our former employees
are very well-trained and know what they’re
doing after graduating from the ‘Deltamarin
university’. We have heard this from several places.
Deltamarin gave them useful experience in the field.
When the industry was struggling and Deltamarin
wasn’t doing all that great, we missed out on an
entire generation. That must have affected the work
environment too. People were speaking of a sunset
industry. For a few years now, however, ship design
has been doing extremely well, especially in the cruise
ship and ro-pax sectors. The order book for cruise
ships and ferries is at an all-time high and Deltamarin
has been successful on the market. Of course today,
since COVID-19 came, changed all the shipping markets
and completely stopped the cruise sector, it is difficult
to say where the future will take us. However, having
already seen a few hiccups starting from the first oil
crisis in the 1970s, the big recession in the early 1990s,
the aftermath of 9/11 and several other similar events,
we can say that one of the first sectors to recover
is shipping and, when shipping recovers, so does
shipbuilding. The need to transport goods and people
does not disappear. The silver lining in all this is the big