Holyhead Marine wins £1.6m Falmouth Harbour contract

Falmouth Harbour has awarded Holyhead Marine a £1.6m contract to build a fuel-efficient pilot vessel to join a fleet operating 24/7, 365 days a year. The vessel will complete more than 1,000 boardings and landings per year within the Falmouth Harbour Pilotage Area.

Top boatbuilders around the UK competed for the contract, with a remit to make full use of modern advances in fuel-saving technology, safety and crew welfare and to have the new, 16–18m dedicated coded pilot vessel operational in 2024.

“Our pilot boat crews work 24/7, 365 days a year, in all weathers, to keep our harbour open and safe to shipping and they deserve the best equipment we can buy,” says Falmouth Harbour CEO Miles Carden. “This new pilot vessel, built in the UK by Holyhead, will be an incredible asset for the next 20-30 years.

“It will be state of the art and one of the few Tier 3-compliant pilot vessels operating in the country – with features that help Falmouth Harbour Commissioners meet their sustainability targets.”

He adds: “This is a very proud moment for our whole team who have worked incredibly hard to reach this point. In 18 months’ time the new vessel will arrive, and this will be one of the biggest events for the harbour for a decade and one of the largest private investments for a considerable period.”

The pilot boat has a Camarc Design-refined hull form, which has been developed to improve efficiency,
reduce fuel consumption and enhance seakeeping capability.

Falmouth Harbour’s two current all-weather coded pilot boats operated by the Pilot Service are Arrow, a 16.7m Halmatic-built modern pilot vessel built in 2006, and the LK Mitchell, a 17.5m Nelson 56 pilot vessel built in 1978. A two-boat operation, with the vessels operated in rotation, is essential to ensure complete coverage of the area and allow for vessel downtime and maintenance.

The new vessel will replace the LK Mitchell, which was built in 1978 and has been operating as a Falmouth pilot boat ever since.

“At 45 years old LK Mitchell is fast approaching a point where she is no longer economically viable to operate to the standards required of a 24/7 operation in Falmouth,” says Carden. “She has been a loyal servant to our port, but the time to replace her has come. We will outline this vessel’s future in the coming months, and we hope to redeploy her in a second, less demanding commercial life.”

Falmouth Pilot Services (FPS) is a service arm of Falmouth Harbour Commissioners and Falmouth Harbour is the pilotage authority for the Falmouth Pilotage Area, which spans from Black Head to the Dodman including Falmouth Bay, the Helford and Percuil rivers, the Carrick Roads and the River Fal.

FPS provides pilotage services to Falmouth Dock operators A&P Falmouth and Cornwall Council, which runs the Ports of Truro and Penryn under an agency agreement. Falmouth Pilot Services have the remit to supply safe and efficient pilotage for this whole area on behalf of the many businesses and organisations that operate within it.

The Harbour Board says it evaluated tenders received based on criteria that included suitability of the proposed vessel specifically to the Falmouth Harbour operating environments, capability to deliver a vessel in service by the end of 2024, price and track record and experience of delivering pilot boats successfully into service in the UK.