Its star reference here is ABP Southampton, which signed an agreement in 2000 through which VT Halmatic bought and then leased back ABP’s existing pilot, survey and patrol fleet on a fully supported contract for ten years, incorporating a six-vessel replacement programme.
“We started to offer this kind of service with offshore patrol boats for the Royal Navy; having cut our teeth on the big stuff, we moved the cost model over to the smaller commercial boats,” says VT Halmatic marketing executive Seb Freeman.” From the point of view of the operator, they have transferred all their risk.
Having the boats out and maintaining service is our responsibility.
“The port hasn’t got costly depreciating assets around their necks and they don’t have to worry about maintenance or holding vast amounts of spares. We build and we maintain.
It isn’t their core business; it is what we are good at.”
Of course, it helps that Southampton is on his doorstep – ports further away would require the setting up of a remote maintenance base and availability of a relief boat – but Freeman says at least four UK ports are considering making this move and he believes collaboration could be the way forward.
“We want to see if we can get clusters of ports. Certainly the big ones work quite nicely as standalone for this concept but smaller or medium-sized ports could collaborate in this way and reduce costs.”
