Navigation Buoys Deployed at South Hook

The Class 2 buoys and highly visible for the LNG tankers and offer a variation on Hippo Marine’s standard 3m Super-Lite design. Manufactured at Hippo’s facility in Saltash, Cornwall UK, this series of buoys is already in service at places as far afield as Alaska and the cyclone zone off Dampier, northwest Australia.

The ‘self fendering’ foam elastomer technology employed in the construction of the hulls makes the Hippo buoys virtually unsinkable, and these hulls were also supplied with a 100% UV stable colouring integrated into the outer skin, as well as a safe antibacterial coating to inhibit marine growth.

Chris Sparrow, Hippo’s sales and marketing manager said, ‘The majority of the cost of ownership of any buoy, of whatever construction, is tied up with the lifetime maintenance requirement rather than the initial purchase cost, and the majority of this maintenance cost will be incurred on the occasions when that buoy has to be lifted out of the water and brought back to land for refurbishment or repair.

‘Our guiding principle is the design, manufacture and supply of buoys which will only under exceptional circumstances need to touch land, and where the in-water maintenance programme can, as far as is possible in any given application, be reduced to a regular lift to inspect the moorings and jetwash off any marine growth or bird deposits.’

MHPA assistant Harbour Master John Littleton added, ‘We were convinced, given the strength of their proposal and their track record, that Hippo were able to offer us the best platform onto which to fit our preferred lighting systems. We look forward to the ongoing cost benefits which their technology will be bringing to our buoy operations.’