The so-called Hamburger Bojer, a flat-lying sailing ship that was first mentioned in 1524 as going sea to Holland and England, developed from this. As a rule, ships with a draft of up to 1.75 meters could be built, the Hamburg fairway from Dat Deep, the fleet, which is still traced today by the Oberhafen, Zollkanal and inland port, did not allow more. Numerous ordinances, so-called Burspraken, regulated the craft: As soon as the new ships were planked up to the waterline and could just swim, they had to be lowered into the water for further processing in order to limit the risk of fire. The need for ships was great in the time of the rising Hanseatic League, not only were cogs built for the Kauffahrtei, but bars and warships for the protection of merchant shipping were also commissioned. Also the name of the neighboring street Pickhuben refers to shipbuilding: it refers to the pitch hoods that were prepared here for caulking. which runs in the Speicherstadt on the Zollkanal. It corresponds roughly to today's Brook Street.
Accordingly, this street was named Schiffbauerbrook in the following centuries. The first written evidence of shipbuilding in Hamburg is a combing invoice from 1380, which confirms that the location "where the ships were built" was on the eastern part of the Kehrwieder Island, between the city and the Grasbrook Island.
Great Grasbrook around 1790 Detail from a map by Gustav Adolf von Varendorf red (1) denotes the Schiffbauerplatz In the 20th century, shipyard work, along with port work, had a decisive influence on the social structure in the city and was a significant factor for each of the political systems - the Empire, Weimar Republic, National Socialism and the Federal Republic. The Hamburg shipyards have a tradition of craft shipbuilding, which goes back to the Middle Ages and has been subject to technical changes as well as the respective structural changes in the economy, politics and urban development over the centuries.