Southampton-headquartered ship repairer and marine engineering services provider SMS has completed its first ever major high speed craft (HSC) refit in France.
SMS last week docked the HSC Condor Rapide in Cherbourg on the Port Normands Associe’s (PNA) ship lift.
SMS, over a week period, undertook the docking on the Rolls Royce syncrolift in the Port of Cherbourg.
The lift is 90m x 32m and offers a 3000T lift capacity. Located just 75 miles from the Solent, it’s more effective solution for Solent centric operators than the ship repair yards in the North East and South West.
Chris Norman, Managing Director of SMS, said: “This project will hopefully be the first of many. It’s a great example of the type of turn-key solution that we specialise in at SMS.
“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.
“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.”
SMS has a partnership agreement which allows them to use the Syncrolift facility at the Port of Cherbourg on a ‘turn up and go’ basis.
SMS have no permanent base in Cherbourg – the company is built around mobility, flexibility and a dynamic multi-skilled workforce that routinely travel.
Hence refits and repairs alongside nationally, and now internationally, are considered the norm.
