Innovate UK meets British Marine members at TheYachtMarket.com Southampton Boat Show

British Marine welcomed Dr Ruth McKernan CBE, Chief Executive at Innovate UK to the opening day of TheYachtMarket.com Southampton Boat Show. She attended the Show to meet with British Marine member companies which have received funding from her agency, helping them to bring new innovations to market.

During her visit Dr McKernan met with representatives from Cheetah Marine, based on the Isle of Wight, providing welcome support for their new vessel launch. She also met with Bruntons Propellers, based in Clacton-on-Sea, and International Paint (part of AkzoNobel), based in Southampton, who along with Cheetah Marine, had all been successful recipients of funds from Innovate UK’s Vessel Efficiency competition programme.

Innovate UK is the Government agency responsible for driving and part funding business technology projects in order to grow the UK economy. By part funding projects which can show a realistic future potential, but deemed too risky for businesses to 100% fund themselves, Innovate UK can help reduce that risk. This can then lead to new technologies advancing to market quicker and better funded.

British Marine, the membership organisation for the UK leisure, superyacht and small commercial marine industry, has been working with Innovate UK since its inception, helping the agency to promote its competitions and support to the UK’s marine industry and helping member companies with their applications. Cheetah Marine’s successful bid saw them work with a number of partners, bringing together diesel outboard technology, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and hull modelling to achieve a new hull design which can run at high cruising speeds at very low RPM and deliver considerable fuel savings.

Innovate UK Chief Executive Ruth McKernan said: “Businesses such as Cheetah Marine, Bruntons Propellers and AkzoNobel are great examples of UK marine businesses who are developing the next generation of high-tech innovations to improve the efficiency of vessels in this important global market.

“Innovate UK is proud to have supported them to innovate and grow and I encourage more marine companies to seek out the opportunities of our funding across our different sector competitions. UK marine businesses and events such as TheYachtMarket.com Southampton Boat Show highlight the important role they play on our coastal economies.”

Howard Pridding, Chief Executive of British Marine said: “There are so many great innovators in the UK marine industry. The funding and support that Innovate UK can provide is hugely important to taking those innovations from the drawing board to market.

“I am delighted that Dr McKernan has been able to visit the TheYachtMarket.com Southampton Boat Show and meet with some of those British Marine member companies that her agency has provided funding to. I hope that Innovate UK will continue to work closely with us and the industry to ensure that more marine businesses can benefit from this important support.”