Boating Business April 2020

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APRIL 2020

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NEWS

Photo: RNLI/Harrison Bates

RNLI TO UPGRADE SEVERN CLASS

The RNLI is to upgrade each of its Severn class lifeboats at an average cost of around £1.25m each. The move is intended to extend the life of the lifeboats so they can continue saving lives at sea for another 25 years. The Severn entered service in 1996 and there are currently 44 of these 42 tonne lifesaving vessels in the charity’s fleet. With an operational lifespan of 25 years, these lifeboats are now approaching retirement age and are due to come off service soon. However, the charity’s in-house engineering team has worked in partnership with academic and industry experts and established that an upgrade will enable another 25 years’ service. “From shock-mitigating seats for the crew, to new survivor

EXTERIOR FITTING OUT

8 Yarmouth RNLI’s Severn class lifeboat

space seating for casualties and a new daughter craft that can be launched quickly for rescuing casualties in shallow waters or close to rocks, the life extension upgrades will ensure our Severn class lifeboats are ready to save lives at sea for another 25 years,” explained Nick Fenwick, project manager for the RNLI’s Severn life extension programme. Six Severn class lifeboats will be upgraded initially, with the upgrades taking place at the RNLI’s All-weather Lifeboat Centre in Poole, Dorset. The RNLI says the upgrade cost is significantly less than the cost of designing and building a brand-new class of lifeboat.

TOPAZ ARGO IS SELECTED BY ROYAL NAVY CCF Topper's Topaz Argo dinghy has been selected by the Royal Navy Combined Cadet Force (CCF) as a replacement for the Bosun dinghy. The news follows a two-year test programme from the CCF evaluating all options available. “The Boson has been the mainstay of sail training for the CCF for many years, however it was felt that a more userfriendly all-round boat fleet boat was needed,” explained Jon Manners, sales manager for Topper International. “The Topaz Argo offers a safe stable platform for learning to sail and then for the more experienced sailors it has a great performance with the options of symmetric and trapeze as well as the standard asymmetric spinnaker.” He added: “The adoption of the Topaz Argo marks a great step forward for the Royal Navy Combined Cadet Force with adoption of a new boat as their standard crewed sailing craft.

New doors are opened Solarglide expands Sales team restructure 50 call-outs pages 1-12

Topper International is very pleased to be working with the CCF to complete this project.” As part of the CCF program of development units entered teams in to the Southport 12-hour race, due to the number of entries the Topaz Argo was granted its own fleet status along with the two traditional classes. Topper will now deliver the fleet of dinghies to the Royal Navy Centres across the country as well as the CCF units based in schools. “Whilst there may be a few tearful eyes around the CCF as the old Bosuns are towed away, (I myself was taught to sail in a Bosun in 1974) we are confident that we have a superb all-round dinghy in which to train Cadets for the foreseeable future,” added CCF's principle boat officer Major Kevin Lillicrap. There are around 150 CCF sections in the UK that are sponsored by the RN.

Ceredi is added Smart 1 is relaunched New deck shower Blue Gee is bought pages 16-19

ELECTRICAL SYSTEMS

Trio of new products New control system Generator range expanded New circuit tester pages 20-23


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