Safety.

German Ship Repair Jamaica Limited (GSRJ) was founded by Peter Harren (Harren and Partner, now Harren Group) and Charles Johnston (Jamaica Drydock, Jamaica Freight and Shipping, Jamaica Fruit and Shipping), who both saw the urgent need for a ship repair yard in the Caribbean area. For many decades, a service team of Harren and Partner had serviced container feeder vessels in the region. Since 2016, the ship repair activities were expanded, after Peter Harren and Charles Johnston teamed up with Kim Clarke, Managing Director of the Shipping Agency Maritime and Transport, and mobile engine repair specialist and international spare part vendor Kloska from Germany, and ship repair and newbuilding shipyard HAT-SAN from Turkey to build a modern, efficient and reliable shipyard in the heart of the Caribbean. Several Jamaican companies and pension funds joined to make this dream a reality: with the arrival of its first Floating Dock in August 2023, the GSRJ Shipyard started operations and has since successfully worked on several commercial vessels, including container ships, tankers, ro-ro and offshore vessels.

Interview with founders

Together, the company’s leadership has decades of experience in the maritime industry, in the shipyard industry and mobile repair and longstanding experience in the region. In the following years, several investors joined the company for the development of a shipyard, which allowed for the acquisition of the property in a sheltered area of the harbour of Kingston and the Panamax-size Floating Dock now known as JAM-DOCK 1. Upgrades to infrastructure and workshops are still ongoing, while the expansion plans for a Phase 2 with a second Floating Dock are already in the making.