A new 22m Meercat Boats multirole vessel (MRV) featuring a bespoke drop-down bow has been handed over to Topbond and has already begun its first charter.

The steel MRV22 landing craft, named Toplander, is Meercat's largest ever workboat, and has been designed to reflect the company's multirole vessel 'standard design, while its drop-down bow enables ease of access for trucks and heavy plant.

An official handover took place at Seawork International 2019, where Topbond's business development director, Simon Johnson, said "it's only just finished sea trials to make sure it meets the performance criteria, but now it is safe to be chartered."

According to Mr Johnson, the main benefits of the boat are "versatility, capability, speed. The bow door also opens a long way to a very flat level so that we can fir vehicles, apparatus and equipment onto this 50t payload deck space."

It was designed with aquaculture in mind, but can also be used to support civil engineering works.

Alognside Toplander, two smaller Meercat boats and other vessels in the Topbond fleet are available for charter.

By Rebecca Jeffrey