All in the box

It’s not so far out of its usual remit, after all, Romica’s marine lift and winch equipment is often used for marine site and seismic surveys – the company has a speciality in umbilical handling winches and solutions for AUVs, ROVs, subsurface recordings and deep-towed survey systems.

However this one is a little different explained the company’s founder, Bob Turner. The 4,000-metre capacity winch system, designed for various large mooring operations out at sea, will be freighted worldwide in an ISO 20’ open-topped container with an electrically driven hydraulic power unit, also in a 10’ ISO certified container; included are all the necessary peripherals such as spares, remotes, cables and hoses.

The idea is that as the winch unit and power pack is self-contained they can be easily ‘cross decked’ between NOC vessels and more, it also allows NOC to utilise the system on international partnership vessels as well as those of other NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) organisations – such as British Antarctic Survey, which recently announced the purchase of a new research ship.

Interestingly, Romica itself is the product of a partnership that spans Europe.

The company works with TIE Services International SRL, based in Satu Mare, Romania. TIE is a British-owned, Romanian-registered company run by another family member – the founder’s son Michael Turner: this partnership has been the backbone of Romica’s activity for the last 13 years.

As Bob Turner explained, this results in lower production costs although the engineering standards drawn from Romania’s manufacturing skills base remains exceptionally high: the newly expanded 7,000m facility has welding and fabrication certification and has recently been accredited by DNV GL.

By Stevie Knight