Burgess Marine Takes Over Marchwood Slipways

Britain’s largest independent ship repairer Burgess Marine has secured a long-term lease for slipways on the South Coast of England.

The Marchwood Slipways site has been renamed Burgess Marine Marchwood and came under Burgess Marine’s management today. (October 1, 2015) 

Brian and Rossalyn Chandler, who currently operate the slipways, will be joining the Burgess Marine team.

The footprint provides two rolling slips - one of 500T and one of 1000T - both slips can support vessels up to 70m LOA - and 183m of jetty with berthing. 

The site offers opportunities for short, medium and long-term storage, ultra-high pressure water blasting washing and open shot blasting. 

Burgess Marine will also be providing its ‘standard’ shipyard services to include project management, structural engineering in both steel and aluminum, mechanical engineering, marine grade electrical engineering and hydraulic repairs and renewals.

The site will be managed by Karl Kerry who also manages Burgess Marine Portchester’s 1000T syncrolift and yard at the top of Portsmouth Harbor.

Karl said: “The site is excellent and we already have good, long-standing relationships with all of the yard's key customers - in fact we’ve at least four dockings already stemmed. 

“We will be both investing and improving health and safety standards in Marchwood; we’ll also be changing the way that the site works. 

“We’ll subcontract aspects of the works undertaken, for example the paint, but we will be doing the majority of the works in-house. 

“What’s key for us is that we maximize the utilization of the footprint and work in proper partnership with our customers to ensure the best, and most sensible, utilization of both our footprints in Portchester and now Southampton."

Some of the yard's key customers are Red Funnel, Jenkins Marine, Blue Funnel, Williams Shipping and the Sandbanks Ferry.

The site will continue to be managed on a day-to-day basis by Brian Chandler.

Burgess Marine secured a long lease for the site from ABP Southampton.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.