UK electric engineering firm reports busiest year in a decade
SeaKing Electrical, a UK-based electrical engineering specialist for the marine offshore and industrial sectors, has announced its busiest year in a decade for superyacht work. The news comes ahead of its attendance at the Monaco Yacht Show, which opens on Wednesday.
SeaKing says it sent teams to work on 18 superyacht repair and upgrade projects in the nine months until September, beating its previous record of 17 jobs in all of 2017. The company has worked in the Med in Cadiz, Cartagena, Genoa, La Ciotat and Barcelona, as well as Miami in the US and Antigua in the Caribbean.
SeaKing MD, David Gillam, says the company is seeing increased demand for its electrical services on yachts from 34m-120m, and that demand is expected to continue as yachts return from charter at the ‘close season’ in October.
“SeaKing has worked hard for 10 years to build up technical knowledge and experience of superyachts, drawing on our heritage of working extensively on warships, ferries, cruise ships and commercial vessels,” says Gillam. “The prime work we have carried out this year on superyachts includes inspections, audits and repair of faulty or inefficient equipment.
“Our teams have worked in shipyards or at sea undertaking works covering bridge integration, power generation, propulsion, automation, earth monitoring systems as well as CCTV and security systems. A project on an 80m yacht saw our design and technical team complete a load balance from conception. Another job in Italy required our engineers to remove an obsolete unsupported ship management system and install a new Deif system together with integration with the ships generators.”
Other work has involved a five-year insurance survey to identify electrical faults, infrared thermography surveys for switchboards, the synchronising and load balancing of generators as well as AV and underwater deck and interior lighting LED upgrades.
“Superyacht customers are keen to identify innovative ways to make their vessels more energy efficient and environmentally friendly towards marine life,” Gillam adds. “This includes power generation and propulsion systems, lighting and entertainment systems.”
On one project, SeaKing upgraded the on-board Crestron control, media distribution and entertainment network with a brand new KNX system, WiFi, and advanced DALI lighting system all of which reduced light and noise pollution.
The SeaKing team also travelled to Abu Dhabi, Canada, Germany and Spain this year to carry out superyacht survey work.
Story courtesy of IBI
