Seawork 2013 Sets New Standards
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; the sale of a multi-role, road transportable workboat by Meercat Workboats of Portsmouth to a Tasmanian fish farm and the announcement by Ocean Safety of Southampton of the agreement to replace all the liferafts used by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Other deals done at Seawork included the confirmation of a second 20 ton CTruk multi-purpose catamaran to Sima Charters for its expanding fleet of offshore tender boats and the announcement by Southampton-based PSP of an agreement to ship wind farm vessels across the globe for Njord Offshore.
Seawork 2013 was delighted to welcome Rear Admiral Ian Jess, Director of the Naval Base Operating Centre and ACNS (Support) within Navy Command, on day one of its concurrent conference.
The Seawork Innovation Awards, sponsored by Class Instrumentation, were presented by BBC TV’s Sally Taylor. The overall Spirit of Innovation Trophy was won by Filtertechnik for its Particle Pal, a self-contained, battery operated field kit, which takes a small feed of oil or fuel and passes it through a sophisticated laser particle counter.
Guy Cotten UK won the Marine Equipment category of the Innovations Showcase for its new Drempro Jacket and Drembib Trousers made from bonding high-tech, multi-layered fabric to hard-wearing PVC-coated material to produce durable but comfortable clothing. The Award for the Safety category went to NRG Marine for its PFE range of fire extinguishers, the world’s first non-pressurized, multi-purpose extinguisher. USA exhibitor, Maretron, was awarded a Special Commendation for its Vessel Data Recorder.
The Seawork Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Norman Finley, Lifetime President of the National Workboat Association, who was instrumental in setting up the Association and played a key role in developing the Maritime & Coastguard Agency’s Workboat Code of Practice and the Brown Code, launched at Seawork.
The dates for Seawork 2014 have been confirmed as June 10-12.
