Inland and Coastal Marina Systems celebrates 20-year milestone

Pontoon manufacturer and water access specialist, Inland and Coastal Marina Systems, is celebrating its 20th anniversary at the Southampton International Boat Show, which runs 16-25 September 2022.

The team at Inland and Coastal Marina Systems will be raising a glass of real Irish Guinness to celebrate this 20-year milestone at the show on stand J150 at 2pm on Friday 16 September.

Born out of Banagher Precast Concrete (BPC), an Irish precast concrete manufacturer which started producing concrete jetties in 1990, Inland and Coastal Marina Systems (ICMS) was set up by Oliver and Claire Shortall in 2002, while Oliver was still working for BPC.

“When I joined Banagher, it had just started developing floating jetties,” says Shortall. “I could see that there was a growing market for pontoons and jetties in Ireland, but Banagher was focused on other sectors, so when the opportunity arose for me to buy the jetty side of the business, we started Inland and Coastal.”

With demand strong, and no other company manufacturing pontoons in Ireland, ICMS went from strength to strength. Based in Co. Offlay, the company opened offices in Lossiemouth, Scotland, in 2015 and in Hamble, England, in 2018.

Now employing over 50 people, ICMS designs, manufactures and installs pontoons and concrete breakwaters in marinas, yacht harbours and commercial ports worldwide, including Mexico, Australia and France.

“I’m delighted with how the business and our product portfolio have grown over the last 20 years,” continues Shortall. “Building on the development of the Glass Reinforced Concrete (GRC) decking and the first concrete breakwaters at BPC in 1998, we developed continuous concrete pontoons in 2013 and started our heavy-duty pontoon range in 2014, in addition to our standard leisure marina pontoons.

“Because we came out of Banagher Concrete, we’ve always taken the approach that every product we make should be built with robustness, so it’ll last. And today, that’s what people associate us with, which has led to new business in the burgeoning offshore wind and renewables sector, building pontoons for crew transfer vessels (CTV) and operation and maintenance bases (O&M).”