It’s been another busy month at Stone Marine Services. With service work spanning from Aberdeen to Houston, Louisiana to Nigeria the engineering team have clocked up the miles to ensure vessel owners and ship managers are kept on the move. This is what the month of March had in store for us.
Ernesto Completes Welding Qualification
Firstly, credit where it’s due – a big congratulations to Ernesto for the successful completion of the Welder Performance Qualification. At SMS, we are continuously looking to develop the skills of our workforce. Of course, in our current climate with handshakes prohibited the certificate was presented by James McGuire with the conventional covid-19 elbow touch.
SMS Sales Director American Road Trip
SMS Sales Director, Ryan McIntrye made a scheduled visit to Houston to meet with suppliers, partners and customers in what rounded off a busy 10 days. It was an opportunity to meet with our service partner Thrustmaster of Texas and also Subsea Global Solutions before ending the week in Louisiana where he visited our service engineers working on two overhauls at SCHOTTEL’s impressive facility in Houma.
Our first stop was at the Thrustmaster of Texas facility which is the largest thruster manufacturing factory in the world where they carry out fabrication, machining, assembly and testing.
Next up, we visited our friends at SGS for various joint Oil and Gas meetings. With SGS’s experience in delivering ‘turnkey solutions’ for vessel and rig owners, it was an excellent opportunity to share our joint approach in underwater thruster removal and topside repair. A partnership that delivers measurable benefit to customers.
On the last leg of his trip, Ryan stopped by to visit our experienced service engineers, John and Phil who were working on overhauls at SCHOTTEL USA in Houma. Our engineers support vessel owners and ship managers across the globe in the repair and servicing of their critical assets.
Apprenticeship Week
Back on home soil, it was the Scottish Apprenticeship Week where SMS attended both Dunfermline HS and Auchmuty HS. Our team of technical experts and SMS apprenticeship graduates were in attendance to pass on their expertise to those interested in a career in marine engineering. There was a great turn out at the event and we received lots of interest in the upcoming opportunities for two young apprentices to join Stone Marine Services.
VIP Guests on the HMS Prince of Wales
Our Technical Sales Manager, Peter White was a VIP guest of Babcock Marine on board the HMS Prince of Wales at the beginning of the month. It was great to be part of the historic celebrations in her first visit to Liverpool.
Peter added, “The ship is at the cutting edge of technology and construction, the magic ingredient is the cooperation from shipwrights and blacksmiths all working together”. We would like to extend a note of thanks to Babcock for their hospitality.
SMS and Schottel Asset Management and Workshop Assistance
In the SMS workshop Inverkeithing, we were testing the valves on this Schottel STP 170 unit as part of our maintenance schedule. This is our in-house designed test rig including the simulated bridge control that we have harvested from past service jobs which we have repurposed and reconditioned.
Furthermore, our engineers have recently been operating from the impressive Schottel HQ facility in Germany, tasked with working on their specialised equipment. During their time away the SMS duo helped with strip downs of several units including, SRP 1515, SRP 1010 and an STP 200.
We would like to extend a message of thanks to SCHOTTEL for looking after our engineers – both Ross and Bob thoroughly enjoyed working alongside the team and assisting with our company relations.
COVID-19 – SMS providing solutions via ‘Remote Guidance‘
Lastly, with the travel restrictions placed upon engineers we are available to provide online and telephone technical support to existing and new customers who require assistance. We can help.