Record year for Seawork

Visitors to the exhibition held at the ABP Port of Southampton from June 25 to 27 were drawn in by the lure of new products, new vessels on the pontoons, demonstrations on-the-water and the conference papers from organisations including the Ministry of Defence, the Maritime & Coastguard Agency and the Navitus Bay Wind Park development.

The Seawork Innovation Awards, sponsored by Class Instrumentation, were presented by BBC TV’s Sally Taylor.The overall Spirit of Innovation Trophy was won by Filtertechnik for its Particle Pal, a self-contained, battery operated field kit, which takes a small feed of oil or fuel and passes it through a sophisticated laser particle counter.

Guy Cotten UK won the Marine Equipment category in the Innovations Showcase for its new Drempro Jacket and Drembib Trousers made from bonding high-tech, multi-layered fabric to hard-wearing PVC-coated material – a revolutionary manufacturing process.

The award in the Safety category went to NRG Marine for its PFE range of fire extinguishers, the world’s first non-pressurised, multi-purpose extinguisher. USA exhibitor, Maretron, was awarded a Special Commendation for its Vessel Data Recorder.

The Seawork Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Norman Finley, lifetime president of the National Workboat Association, who was instrumental in setting up the association and played a key role in developing the Maritime & Coastguard Agency’s Workboat Code of Practice and the Brown Code, launched at Seawork.

The dates for Seawork 2014 have been confirmed as Tuesday 10 to Thursday 12 June.

More information from www.seawork.com