An all-embracing term, covering anything and everything associated with ships and the sea. It could be ships stabilisers, lifeboats with flares (hazardous), marine engines, rudder horns or whatever.
Although no longer manufactured in the UK, we can well remember the ships propellor (oversize) where we chased a cruise liner around the Mediterranean. On the one hand, the existing propellor had suffered minor damage – on the other, it didn’t justify taking the vessel out of service, disrupting everyones holiday. Hence the reason for our chasing the vessel from port to port, with the new propellor, until a convenient “window” appeared, in order to effect the changeover.
Moving into another maritime area – yachts, both sail and power, have always featured. The yacht spars for one of the worlds largest sailing yachts (The Maltese Falcon) were manufactured in Brightlingsea, Essex – with the final destination being an assembly yard just outside Istanbul. Made of carbon fibre, with an optic fibre insert, each spar was able to monitor and transmit the stress factors (from the sails) to the wheelhouse, in order to obtain optimum speed and performance.
Although not strictly maritime, the reed cutter, manufactured in the USA, having arrived at Antwerp, was an unusual challenge. STGs role was to arrange delivery to Azerbaijan. Just one problem, it wasn’t the usual “river sized” reed cutter – almost twice the size, requiring both permits and escorts throughout the journey.
