By
Rebecca Gibson |
UK-based ship repairer and marine engineering services provider SMS has completed its first major high-speed craft refit in France this June.
SMS carried out the scheduled week-long refurbishment on Condor Ferries’ Condor Rapide, docking the ferry on the Port Normands Associe’s ship lift (known as a syncrolift) at the Port of Cherbourg. The team completed minor structural repairs, electrical upgrades and work on the Wärtsilä waterjet propulsion system on the ferry’s port outer main engine.
“As Condor Ferries we were impressed with both the speed and quality of SMS’s works and its coordination on the ground in Cherbourg,” said Rob Loder, ship manager for Condor Ferries. “It was a planned, challenging project and all parties performed well.”
Manufactured by Rolls-Royce, the syncrolift is 90 metres long and 32 metres wide and can lift vessels weighing up to 3,000 tonnes. The syncrolift is located 75 miles from the Solent (the strait separating the Isle of Wight from mainland England), which makes it an effective solution for Solent operators who do not want to travel up to the ship repair yards in the North East and South West of England.
“Condor Ferries has long been a customer of SMS and now, with the unique relationships that we’ve got in France, we intend to put more and more business into Cherbourg and onto the ship lift,” said Chris Norman, managing director of SMS. “The facility is perfect. We’re masters of our own destiny here in France and the proximity of the lift to the Solent region gives us a viable solution for not only Condor Ferries, but also the likes of Brittany Ferries, Wightlink and Red Funnel.”