Green Marine into liquidation

Hampshire based Green Marine, one of the UK’s most respected composite builders, has been forced into liquidation. The liquidator will be appointed on 18th October.

A recent slowdown in orders saw its workforce depleted over the past 12 months. The remaining 46 workers were made redundant this week.

Working from a state of the art composite production facility at Hythe Marine Park near Southampton, Green Marine’s core business was building custom racing yachts, high performance superyacht hulls and lightweight components in carbon fibre composites.

Southampton insolvency specialist Peter Hall has been instructed to place the company into Creditors’ Voluntary Liquidation which happened on October 3. General trading ceased on October 4.

Peter Hall, director of Peter Hall, said: “In the last three months the company was expecting a significant order, the hull and superstructure for a super yacht, , which would have returned the company to profitability. Sadly, this failed to materialise in time. It highlights the issues facing companies which rely on a low number of very high value projects. It’s very much a family business so an incredibly emotional time for the directors and employees.”

Established in 1982, Green Marine has built more than 180 composite boats, including some particularly high-profile race designs for challengers for the America’s Cup and Volvo Ocean Race.

The Company moved from its premises in Lymington and Southampton (Spitfire Quay) some seven years ago to larger leasehold premises at Hythe Marina where substantial investment was made to enable the company to work on several large projects at once.

In the past 12 months, however, the company lacked the large orders it needed to meet overheads and it began to incur losses.