NZ Manufacturer Bags Anchor Supply Deal
New Zealand maritime manufacturer Coppins Para Sea Anchors has secured a multimillion-dollar contract to supply anchors to a Norwegian salvage company.
The family business firm based in Motueka on the South Island has sent the first of two one-tonne sea anchors to the Norwegian Coast Guard.
Coppins Outdoor Centre owner and designer Bill Coppins has been devising ways of stopping and steering vessels using the underwater fabric parachute-style anchors, which work by displacing water, since the mid-1970s.
Coppins' competitors failed when their sea anchors blew out in testing. Bill claimed that what it took the other companies seven years to do; his firm had to do in seven months.
Aimed at countries with coastlines trafficked by oil tankers or large freight ships, the anchors are used when ships have lost power at sea. They can hold large vessels and point them into the wind to prevent them breaking up.
Coppins' innovative sea anchor has been designed with a space-age metal arresting chain that can be dropped by helicopter onto the superstructure of a vessel in trouble, even if no crew are left on board. The chain wraps around parts of the superstructure and the anchor deploys like an underwater parachute, to stabilize the vessel, hold it in place and keep it headed into the wind. The anchor buys time for authorities to get a rescue tug in place.
For the past five years Coppin's machinists and designers have been working with the United States Navy on a sea anchor project.
The new contract follows the company's win last year of an international award for its Para Sea Anchor (PSA) ship steerage control project.
