Plan your engine servicing at Seawork
Marine engine service provider Finning Power Systems will showcase its range of maintenance and service packages available to work boat operators at this year’s Seawork exhibition.
One recent customer to benefit from Finning’s managed services expertise is Trinity House, the General Lighthouse Authority for England, Wales and the Channel Islands.
The organisation operates a number of craft to maintain navigational aids, including 10 light vessels and 412 buoys, some of which mark the English Channel, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
Using Finning managed services, Trinity House is now benefiting from round the clock support for a variety of engine types which include Caterpillar, Ruston and Wartsilla as well as outsourcing the management and supply of genuine spare parts, thus saving the time and effort of dealing with separate engine suppliers.
Graham Forster, superintendant engineer for Trinity House, explained, “Our three vessels have to be ready to respond in any situation. Often, we can schedule their availability in advance, particularly when we are carrying out routine maintenance work on the buoys.
“However, under the Merchant Shipping Act 1995, we also have a statutory duty to arrive within six hours to the scene of any wrecks that are a danger to other vessels and, as a result, we regularly assess our ability to respond quickly as part of our contingency planning.
“Patricia, powered by a Ruston engine and Galatea, which features a Wartsilla engine, are used to carry service crews to maintain the buoys. A third, Caterpillar powered vessel, the Alert, is designed for rapid response to emergencies, such as the locating and marking of wrecks, or to rescue any casualties in the English Channel.
Graham Forster continued, “To ensure we could meet the various requirements, we assessed a number of engine service providers, using criteria such as call to fix times, emergency breakdown response, access to genuine spare parts and 24/7 availability.
“However, our top priority was to select just one partner that had the expertise to service and maintain the three different engine makes powering our vessels. As we have already been using Finning to successfully support the Caterpillar engines onboard Alert, we were confident to select the company as our single source supplier for all of our engine servicing.
Finning has recently carried out a complete overhaul of the engines onboard Galatea and Patricia and during this time, the vessels remained in use and were returned to full service within the allocated timeframe.
The company also provides full technical support on each engine type, either remotely or on location, and a planned approach to scheduled servicing, helping to improve engine life and overall performance and reducing the risk and cost of emergency repairs.
