"Our service is unique around the world"
The large conference room in Home & Marine's headquarters in Bremen-Nord exudes restrained elegance. Only a silver high-end record player on the sideboard and two black tower speakers at the front immediately draw the eye. "Wait, there's more," Günter Trempnau usually says to his guests just before a 60-inch flat screen TV folds down from the ceiling. Trempnau has been able to impress quite a few customers with this. The 61-year-old is the founder and managing partner of Bremen-based electronics specialist Home & Marine, which equips mega-yachts and luxury homes around the world with entertainment, communication and security systems and the necessary IT infrastructure. With a restraint that rivals his conference room, Trempnau states in a matter-of-fact manner: "Our service is unique around the world."
Discretion is the key factor in this market
The now 65-strong team at Home & Marine has equipped more than 100 yachts since the company was founded just over 25 years ago, but not all of them are named in the list of references on the website. That is because is discretion is valued very highly in the world of luxury yachts and mega-yachts, in which another Bremen-based company, shipbuilders Lürssen, is a leading player. Unsurprisingly, Trempnau does not talk about his clientele or the type or content of orders that his company deals with. But a few names do give an idea of the spheres in which this SME based in Bremen-Vegesack operates. In 2010, Home & Marine worked on billionaire Roman Abramovich's yacht, the Eclipse, built by Blohm+Voss and one of the largest in the world. It has also worked on the Octopus, which the internet claims belongs to Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. But it would be wrong to assume that the company only deals in the luxury market. Other ships that Home & Marine has worked on include the Berlin, a supply ship of the German Navy. "We specialise in complex electronic systems and networks, and those include entertainment systems," Trempnau says.
From on-board discos to complete security systems
The workshops at the headquarters in Bremen-Vegesack reflect this core competency. Inconspicuous black boxes full of electronics are fixed into custom-built racks, as are data servers and large storage media. Once installed on board, they represent the technical backbone of the entertainment and communication systems, which can range from a discotheque to a video-on-demand system for the crew's entertainment when they are off duty, to a complete security system to protect the vessel against all conceivable dangers.