Born out of experience gained from fish farming operations in the extremely harsh conditions in the shadow of the Muckle Flugga lighthouse at the northern tip of the UK, Flugga Boats are a highly evolved design featuring an all aluminium sealed hull with an all plastic sealed compartmentalised collar. The company's own hull designs are worked up in CAD by a naval architect, providing all necessary stability and buoyancy figures whilst also allowing the parts to be profile cut and shipped to Unst in kit form, ensuring type accuracy.

The plastic collar has numerous advantages. It is hard wearing, UV stable, welded rather than glued, easy to repair, happy to be walked on, not affected by oils and does not mark other boats. Even drilling a hole in the collar would not cause it to deflate or distort and flood the deck. The 'suspension' characteristics of the collar gives a solid feel and provides a stability which those boarding the craft at Seawork will instantly recognise.

The best recommendations a boat builder can get are from satisfied operators. Flugga Boats supplied an 8m craft to Hjaltland Sea Farms in Shetland a year ago. The company has recently written to say, 'We were looking for a replacement workboat for safe personnel and customer transport around our fish farm sites, based at Lunna in the Shetlands. We had a trial run in a 6m Flugga Boat and decided to purchase a larger version, the 8m, as we are crossing some fairly open tidal waters and we wanted a diesel inboard for economy. We agreed a spec and price with Unst Inshore Services (builder of Flugga Boats) and delivery came in on time. The build quality and presentation was as expected.

The boat has exceeded performance and after an initial problem with an injector, which was sorted under warranty, we have had no down time.

The boat has clocked over 500 engine hours in the first year . Despite being a general working boat she is still in good condition . Daily visits to cages and feed barges have not affected the collar, and in fact make the boat easier to work with at the cages.

Apart from routine mechanical maintenance the only other requirement has been to pressure wash the bottom on a couple of occasions.

Even in some fairly severe conditions we have never had cause to doubt the boat's ability. Handling is smooth and predictable, the hull is easy running and economical.'

Visitors to Seawork 2008 will be able to trial Flugga Boat's latest design and decide for themselves. It is unlikely the boat will return to Shetland.