Aluminium Marine Consultants (AMC) is one of the UK’s leading aluminium boat builders providing innovative and original, bespoke solutions to vessel construction and design. AMC lead the way in quality control ensuring the highest standards of workmanship are achieved and have attained ISO 9001, 14001 and 18001 Accreditation, ensuring the very best standards of build in a safe and environmentally responsible way.

AMC work closely with the fast growing European market of wind farms and their support facilities. Their research has shown that wind farm support teams will need to travel the average 43.3km from ports and harbours to offshore wind farms to install and maintain the turbines. For this purpose the Isle of Wight-based company has developed a series of Category 1, Bureau Veritas-classed catamaran crew transfer vessel that’s unrivalled for this task as well as being highly flexible.

To control and monitor the power systems onboard these vessels required a comprehensive set of switchboards and helm panels. AMC approached Energy Solutions to design, manufacture and commission these elements for this series of vessels. Overall the control systems needed to be low maintenance, easy to use, and robust enough to meet their 40 year life cycle criteria.

Working closely with AMC engineers for the duration of the project the switchboards, control and monitoring system were all designed by Energy Solutions in-house engineering team. The system, and subsequent panels were designed and delivered to meet the stringent Bureau Veritas and MCA regulations for this vessel type. During the process, all panels and switchboards were modelled by Energy Solutions in 3D enabling AMC to ensure fit and form before delivery, speeding up final installation.

Installed within the wheel house the helm panels were built to match the overall design style of the vessels. They are easy to use and maintain, making them a perfect fit for these vessels which are in constant use in all conditions.

All the units were delivered to AMC for their team to install within the build, then when complete the Energy Engineering team commissioned the system. Daniel Cox, Engineering Manager at Energy Solutions explains “This has been a great series of vessels to work on, the requirements have evolved but we were pleased to deliver a full control and monitoring system that met the exacting requirement of this expanding industry.”

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