Markey Machinery was nominated as a Plimsoll Award candidate based on the development of their single drum asymmetric “render-recover” (ARR) electric hawser winch designs, which have significantly improved the safe handling of ships and lines, representing a major leap forward in ship assist and escort tug winch technology.

Recognizing the need for direct, instantaneous pilothouse control of the tug assist line,

Markey’s high performance electric hawser winches provide active line tension monitoring during all winch operations and automatic ‘render-recover’ control up to three times the bollard pull during escort/arrest manoeuvres.

The Markey DESS and DESF winch systems give a tugboat Captain the ability to devote his full attention to utilizing 100% of the tug's manoeuvring potential, while the Markey winch handles the line.

In the event of shock loads, the winch's dynamic brake instantly applies a restraining load equal to the electric drive capability, releases the electric drive, and continues to apply line braking until the load lessens to a level where the electric drive can be safely and automatically re-engaged.

Markey Machinery has expressed pride on receiving the 2006 Plimsoll Award for Innovation, named after Samuel Plimsoll, a 19^th century British reformer

who fought to stop the dangerous overloading of ships and whose efforts resulted in the hull load line known as the Plimsoll mark. The company will have a presence at Tugnology 07 technical conference in Southampton UK on 11 and 12 June, designed to overlap Seawork International 2007, also in Southampton on 12-14 June.