Meercat Workboats News

Meercat Workboats yesterday moved from Portchester to new, purpose built premises in Hythe Marine Park, Southampton, UK. To coincide with the move the company’s management team has been restructured, two new vessels have been delivered and one new order confirmed. The new site is 1,600 sqm, has two 20-tonne gantry cranes, a machine shop, an electrical workshop, a hydraulic workshop, aluminum welding bays, steel fabrication bays, dedicated stores, offices and customer parking. A sum of circa £500,000 has been invested in the move. Late in September Meercat Workboats delivered two new build vessels: MC26 into the Aquaculture sector and MC28 to a Marine Civils Contractor. The company has relocated in time to conclude two further builds: MC27 (a 14m workboat) and MC29 (a 15m workboat).

MEERCAT Workboats said it has sold a third workboat to Scottish aquaculture firm Dawnfresh. MC26, named Venetia, is an aquaculture specific workboat which will be delivered to Scotland in late August. Venetia is a 15m x 6m monohull workboat designed and principally engineered for aquaculture. The vessel is built to U.K. MCA workboat code of practice CAT 3. She displaces 44T and has a deck loading of 10Tm2. The vessel is powered by two Doosan L136 Ti 460Hp engines with a Beta-Marine 21kVA 50Hz generator. Her deck cargo capacity is 20T.

The U.K.’s Meercat Workboats says it scored a hat-trick; the Hampshire-based boat builder announced it is moving premises, that Seawork was a huge success and that it expects to benefit from the recent Brexit vote. MC28 is a 15m x 6m monohull workboat currently in build for Briggs Marine at the company’s Portchester footprint near Portsmouth in Hampshire. To coincide with the end of the build, Meercat Workboats will be moving to Units 3a & 3b Hythe Marine Park, Shore Road, Hythe, near Southampton. The move is anticipated to take place in September 2016.

U.K.-based Meercat Workboats has sold a custom built monohull workboat to Briggs Marine. The vessel (Hull no. 28) is 15.5m LOA, and 6m beam. Fabrication is well under way at Meercat’s Portchester facility in Portsmouth, Hampshire, with Briggs Marine to take to delivery later this year. The workboat has been configured to facilitate a deck cargo capacity of 20 metric tons and a liquid cargo capacity of sum 2 x 10,000 liters; with 2 x Doosan main engines and a BETA Marine 21kVA generator.

Meercat Workboats have delivered its first vessel under the umbrella of new owners Burgess Marine with the hand-over of a 14m. workboat to Scottish fish farming specialists Dawnfresh Farming. Meercat completed the steel build, named the Falls of Lora, at its facilities in Portchester, Hampshire, and the vessel is now in operation at Dawnfresh’s trout farming operation on Loch Etive, where it is being used for general fish farm maintenance with a particular focus on feeding operations.

The latest Meercat has been launched for Conwy Harbour Authority, for use as a port service vessel. The monohull vessel Jac Y Do measures 14 x 5 meters and is powered by twin Doosan L136 six-cylinder heavy duty engines each developing 160bhp / 118kW at 2,200rpm, supplied by WaterMota. The vessel has been built to serve several uses including general harbor maintenance, doubling as a fully operational dispersal dredger while also being suitable for secondary fire control. Specifications for the vessel included a bow thruster…

Seawork 2013 (UK Port of Southampton June 25-27) attracted record numbers of commercial marine professionals, who were drawn to the exhibition to see new products, new vessels on the pontoons, demonstrations on-the-water, on stands and in the Dive Tank and hear papers from organizations including the Ministry of Defense, the Maritime & Coastguard Agency and the Navitus Bay Wind Park, to be constructed off England’s south coast. Over the three days, 7,327 professionals visited the exhibition, a six per cent increase on 2012. Highlights of Seawork 2013 included: the sale of three vessels by Netherlands-based Damen Shipyards Gorinchem, including a 27m Shoalbuster off the pontoons…