We were received with great courtesy by the Dutch, French, Thyssen and Kockums. The exception was HDW. When we asked for an appointment – with the recommendation from the RAN – we did not receive a reply. A second attempt resulted in ‘an audience’ with Mr Udo Ude (manager acquisition HDW). The interview lasted a short 30 minutes, at best. We explained our capabilities in off-shore oil and gas production platforms, oil refineries, petrochemical plants and shipbuilding (not submarines), and made Ude aware of the important role Australian industry would have in this project. Ude told us that HDW was a submarine builder and would only be interested in the Australian project if at least two boats and subassemblies (packages) would be built in Kiel. We left HDW with the impression that the company was the least desirable partner for Eglo.

HDW was equally unimpressed by its first encounter with Eglo and began talking with large Australian engineering companies such as Transfield and Johns Perry, but found little understanding of what the submarine project would involve. Of the people they talked with, only John Jeremy of Cockatoo Dockyard ‘knew what he was talking about, but Cockatoo was no place to build a submarine’. For some time HDW considered the idea of cooperating with Don Fry of North Queensland Engineers and Agents in Cairns, as the most progressive Australian shipbuilder and also because they were attracted by the conservative government in Queensland ‘for union reasons and for general ease of doing business’. However, after assessing all potential partners, the Germans decided that Eglo, in fact, stood out above the others for its engineering skills, its commitment to the project and the connections it already had with Germany through Hans Ohff and Eglo’s German shareholders.