Damen Shipyards Cape Town to host first African dredging seminar

Friday, 20th October 2017

On 23rd November, Damen Shipyards Group will hold its first African Dredging Seminar at Damen Shipyards Cape Town. The seminar will be attended by personnel from Damen and its suppliers as well as representative of the South African Government and TNPA. The seminar is open to all with an interest in the dredging industry.

During the event, a number of presentations will consider the importance of dredging in Africa, looking at a number of past, present and future projects covering both maintenance and capital dredging. There will also be a demonstration of a Damen submersible DOP/dredging Pump 150.

Damen colleagues will deliver presentations covering the equipment provided by Damen Dredging Equipment (DDE) and the Damen Dredging Product Group, the financing arrangements available from Damen Finance and the after-sales care provided by Damen Services.

Damen has delivered a number of products from the DDE range in Africa. Included in this are a number of the renowned DOP submersible dredging pumps.

Benny Bhali, head of sales at Damen Shipyards Cape Town, said, “We are very excited and looking forward to this event. Dredging has enormous potential to open up additional trading opportunities in Africa. This will be a great chance for stakeholders to discuss the opportunities with a range of experts. I would encourage anyone with an interest in the sector to attend this event.”

The Damen Dredging Seminar will be take place on 23rd November at Damen Shipyards Cape Town, starting at TIME. For more information or to arrange attendance, please contact Ursula Daschner, ud@damen.co.za or +27 21 447 1714.

Woman in a Man’s World

Thursday, 12th October 2017

The IMO is making a substantial global investment to integrate and encourage women into the traditionally male dominated maritime sector. As a female business owner in this industry, that makes total sense to Clare Blatchford-Hanna, the new owner of Anode Outlet & Zinga Outlet, as she has experienced some of the gender bias that comes with this territory. She has worked with and met all sorts of people from all sorts of places and yet still finds it astounding just how retro people’s attitudes can be towards women, and also how few women there are.

In Feb 2017 Clare thought it about time she applied and tested her knowledge and skills, and combine it with an interest – boats. She bought a small online marine cathodic protection business to turnaround. Fortunately she has a sense of humour and plenty of experience of working in male dominated environments and is enjoying the challenge.

Less than 8% of the anode customers are female. Female Zinga customers are at 1%. Customers are almost all male across both leisure and commercial marine. All the suppliers Clare uses are male except one. This is why the IMO are behind the initiative, and Clare is glad. More women are needed to add their thoughts and ideas to help improve the future of the maritime sector – it keeps things interesting!

Clare’s favourite moments so far include:
When meeting (male) competitors at trade shows and introducing herself:

•Staring and silence, followed by ‘Sorry my colleagues can’t speak, they’re surprised it’s a woman who owns the business now’
•Having answered the office phone with usual business greeting:
‘Can you put me through to someone technical?’
•Having reiterated she could assist…
‘Are you sure you can help me, because you’re a girl…!’
•On emails asking for quotes:
‘Dear Sir’ (Need she say more..)
•From a supplier when purchasing parts:
‘Do I make this out to your boss?’ (Er, yes and that’ll be Clare)
•And to Clare’s advantage…of course, you’ve got to work the system to your advantage when you get the opportunity

Clare: flutters eyelashes ‘Can I have an extra discount on that please?’
The male supplier: ‘Oh go on then’

For further information please contact:
Anode Outlet & Zinga Outlet

Website: www.anodeoutlet.co.uk

Damen Workboat Festival combines hospitality with on-the-water experiences and knowledge sharing

Tuesday, 10th October 2017

Fine weather after a stormy morning and a wide range of vessels to view and try out on the water encouraged a good turnout of clients, industry partners and media at Damen’s second annual Workboat Festival. Held at Damen Shipyards’ HQ at Gorinchem, the event not only invited guests to experience a selection of smaller tugs, pilot boats, fast crew suppliers and a high-powered RIB, it also gave them the opportunity to explore themes that are very much at the forefront of the industry.

More than 200 guests explored the various stands and interactive exhibits dedicated to six themes that are highly topical at present. These were environmental responsibility; digitalisation; safety & security; operations & maintenance; and marine harvesting & offshore energy. For each of these, Damen specialists were available to present the latest solutions and discuss the initiatives and innovations in each area that Damen is developing for the workboat sector.

In addition to the sizeable Damen team, led by COO Arnout Damen, ten Damen suppliers also had stands on the waterfront. They brought their own specialist knowledge to the day, covering areas including engines and other machinery, electrical integration and automation, and propulsion. This allowed visitors to access an additional layer of knowledge regarding the systems and technology that underpin Damen’s industry-leading workboat range.

“We had a very successful second festival,” commented Mijndert Wiesenekker, Damen Sales Director for Benelux. “It was great to see so many customers and partners despite the earlier bad weather. Features such as our apps showing remote monitoring in action, and the finance department generating quotes in real-time in response to customers’ requests, were a big success. The ship models and products on display received lots of interest and we even had a sand suction challenge with a Damen Cutter Suction Dredger simulator for guests to take part in. We received many compliments from visitors, with comments saying how interesting they found the event, how good the hospitality was, and how nice it was to catch up with old friends and colleagues. We look forward to doing it again next year.”

The day finished off with a networking drinks as the sun went down followed by a pub quiz, which was won by a team from Erwin van Dodewaard, commercial manager at Herman Senior BV, and dancing for those brave enough!

Protect your engine from Cat Fines (OLD)

Tuesday, 10th October 2017

Cat fines are hard, extremely abrasive particles of aluminium and silicon oxides.

· Claims against insurers for damage to ship engine parts due to Cat fines are on the up
· Fine abrasive particles size range 5 to 35 micron
· Porous so have the same specific gravity as the oil
· Assured final removal needs barrier filtration
· Bollfilter 5 micron special mesh is that barrier
· Proven independent high energy backflush effect
· Practical solutions from the filtration experts

Cat fines are hard, extremely abrasive particles of aluminium and silicon oxides, a by-product of the cracking processes used in fuel distillation. Low-sulphur fuels often contain higher levels of catalyst fines ("cat fines"), the scouring action of which can cause extremely rapid wear on an engine's moving parts with potentially catastrophic consequences. Claims against insurers derived from cat fines are on the up.

BOLLFILTER UK are the sole UK and Ireland sales office for BOLL & KIRCH filtration products. We've been established for 2 decades and hold stocks of marine and industrial spare parts at our UK premises for immediate dispatch.

For more information, technical details or a quote please contact the BOLLFILTER UK Filters team. Contact details below;

BOLLFILTER UK Limited
Tel: +44 (0)1621 862180

Damen secures Trailing Suction Hopper Dredger contract

Thursday, 5th October 2017

TSHD 2000 will be built for Rosmorport at LLC ‘Onego Shipyard’

22 September 2017: Damen Shipyards Group has signed a contract with LLC ‘Onego Shipyard’ to build a Trailing Suction Hopper Dredger (TSHD) 2000. The vessel will be built by order of FSUE ‘Rosmorport’ in Petrozavodsk (the Russian Federation) and will be the sixth dredger built under the design of the Dutch company Damen. The vessel will be delivered to the customer in 2019.

Construction of this new TSHD 2000 will involve Damen Technical Cooperation (DTC); the service that company provides to facilitate shipbuilding operations at a local yard of the end-client’s choice. “In this particular case, we will be providing the design and materials package to Onego Shipyard,” states Damen Sales Manager, Marc Tijssen. “And, because transfer of knowledge and technology is a key aspect of the DTC concept, we will also be ready to deliver any assistance during the build process.”

Client feedback
This contract, signed within the framework of the 14th International Maritime Exhibition NEVA 2017 in Saint Petersburg, Russia, was another stage of mutually beneficial cooperation between the Enterprises. Last year FSUE ‘Rosmorport’ was handed over another Damen TSHD 2000 – the Severnaya Dvina.

Damen has had close contact with Rosmorport to identify some additional design requirements to the new vessel. This includes a self-emptying system for bow discharge. “We can always accommodate client modifications to our vessel designs,” adds Mr Tijssen. “After all, our clients have the operational experience in their particular working environment. We use that valuable information to optimise our designs in order to meet those specific needs.”

Local construction
Damen sells vessel designs, licences and materials to clients and non-Damen yards around the world using the DTC concept. This can be further supplemented by engineering packages, building supervision and even yard upgrades. In what is an extremely flexible method of building ships, DTC packages can be tailored precisely to fit each client’s specific requirements. The transfer of knowledge and technologies, and the consequent stimulation of local shipbuilding activities and skills development are key characteristics of this successful formula.

Strong relationships
After delivery in 2019, the new vessel will be used for maintenance operations in the northern region of Russia. Notably, the new vessel will be the sixth Damen dredger in Rosmorport’s fleet. The other vessels include one CSD 650, three TSHD 1000 vessels (built at Krasnoe Sormovo under Damen license) and the TSHD 2000 Severnaya Dvina. Rosmorport also operates a number of Damen workboats.

“We are extremely proud of how our business relationship with Rosmorport and Onego Shipyards has grown over the years,” notes Mr Tijssen. “And of course we are looking forward to forming closer working ties with Onego Shipyard in the near future.”

Month: October 2017

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