Britain’s largest independent ship repairer Burgess Marine has secured a long-term lease from ABP Southampton for two slipways at the top of Southampton Water currently occupied by Marchwood Slipways.
The site came under Burgess Marine’s management on Thursday 1st October and has been renamed Burgess Marine Marchwood.
Brian and Rossalyn Chandler, who currently operate the slipways, have joined the Burgess Marine team.
The footprint provides two rolling slipways – one of 500 tonnes and one of 1000 tonnes – both slips can support vessels up to 70m in length – and 183m of jetty with berthing.
The site offers opportunities for short, medium and long-term storage, ultra-high pressure water blasting washing and open shot blasting.
Burgess Marine will also be providing its ‘standard’ shipyard services to include project management, structural engineering in both steel and aluminium, mechanical engineering, marine grade electrical engineering and hydraulic repairs and renewals.
The site will be managed by Karl Kerry who also manages Burgess Marine Portchester’s 1000T syncrolift and yard at the top of Portsmouth Harbour.
Karl said: “The site is excellent and we already have good, long-standing relationships with all of the yards key customers.
“We will be both investing and improving health and safety standards in Marchwood. We’ll also be changing the way that the site works.
“We’ll subcontract aspects of the works undertaken, for example the paint, but we will be doing the majority of the works in-house.
“What’s key for us is that we maximise the utilisation of the footprint and work in proper partnership with our customers to ensure the best, and most sensible, utilisation of both our footprints in Portchester and now Southampton”.
Some of the yards key customers are Red Funnel, Jenkins Marine, Blue Funnel, Williams Shipping and the Sandbanks Ferry.
The site will continue to be managed on a day-to-day basis by Brian Chandler.
Burgess Marine already has a facility in Southampton in Western Avenue at Western Docks.
Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
