Obituary: Yacht Designer Jörg Beiderbeck

Jörg Beiderbeck, recognized as a figure among the world’s top megayacht designers, has passed away at the age of 69 on the evening of Sunday, August 2, at his home in Bremen-Vegesack, after a long illness. He leaves behind his long-term partner as well as a son and a daughter.

 

beiderbeck designs GmbH has lost not only the man who gave it its name, but one of its four partners. As a megayacht designer, Beiderbeck enjoyed worldwide respect and recognition from owners, shipyards and among his colleagues.

 

"It’s not only beiderbeck designs that is grieving. We will all miss his advice and his expertise. We will honor Jörg Beiderbeck's memory and continue along the same road, so that his aspirations in design and ideas will follow on behind him," said the three remaining partners, Immo Lüdeling, Tim Ulrich and Marcus Lowinski in unison. Jörg Beiderbeck had relinquished the leadership of the renowned design studios in Bremen in 2010.

 

Born in the post-war period on October 6, 1946 in Wolfenbüttel, Jörg Beiderbeck studied in Kiel. After learning his trade in a shipyard in Carthage, in Tunisia, he returned to Schleswig and coined the saying "A man cannot become more than a Holsteiner!" In 1986, however, he ended up in Bremen and worked for 10 years as chief designer for the Lürssen shipyard. There, in 1989, he made an impression with the 40-meter-long motor yacht, Be Mine, the shipyard's entry onto the megayacht scene, which, 20 years later, landed once more on the table of beiderbeck designs for a refit. The even longer Xenia also bore his signature.

 

In the mid-90s, while working as a lecturer at Bremen's Technical College and in his own office as a naval architect, he met Immo Lüdeling and Tim Ulrich, who later succeeded him and took over the destiny of the company. In fact, Immo Lüdeling started working for the Beiderbeck Offices back in 1997 and became a partner in beiderbeck designs GbR in 2001.

 

With the founding of beiderbeck designs GmbH and Tim Ulrich joining the company in March 2010, the planned restructuring was complete. Lüdeling and Ulrich became the directors and "makers" of the company and in 2014 they recruited Marcus Lowinski as a further partner. Today, they can be proud of a number of successful design projects, some of which have won awards, such as the recent Bd80 Bliss sailing yacht and the Swan 105 RS Ti Coyo. With the successful continuation of the design office the Beiderbeck name will also live on.