People milling around on a pontoon at Seawork, the commercial boat show in Southampton

The doors open for visitors to the 25th edition of Seawork today. This is billed as Europe’s largest commercial marine and workboat exhibition, is free to attend, and takes place in Southampton, UK.

HRH The Princess Royal is set to open the exhibition. It’s free to attend but visitors must register in advance.

Organisers say that this year is set to be an international affair. More than a quarter of last year’s exhibitors to Seawork were from overseas, with 20 per cent from Europe and the rest from around the globe. To reflect the growing number of overseas friends and competitors booking stands or registering attendance, there will be national pavilions this year from the Netherlands and Italy.

The Dutch Pavilion, hosted by Netherlands Marine Technology, has exhibiting companies including ESTFloattech, VDL Klima, Bachmann, Bayards Marine Structures, Rotterdam Ship Repair, VABO Composites, Next Generation Shipyards and Royal Roos.

The Italian Pavilion, is organised by the Italian Marine Industry Association Confindustria Nautica. That’s a national non-profit institution that has been representing the Italian yachting supply chain on a national and international level since 1967. It’ll showcase the following exhibitors: ABI Trailers (heavy transport equipment – trailers); F.Lli Razeto & Casareto (boat door accessories, handles, locks and on-board hardware); Gianneschi (marine pumps and blowers); Veleria San Giorgio (lifejackets and safety equipment).

Of course, there will be companies visiting from all over the globe, including HamiltonJet, the New Zealand-based company looking at high performance propulsion technology. It’ll be launching its new data gathering platform, Overwatch. That’s technology designed to provide shore-side staff with detailed vessel information in real-time. The company says that’ll streamline marine operations, improve operational efficiencies and increase levels of safety for crew and passengers by integrating multiple data sources from both on-board the vessel and external sources into a single platform.

“The marine industry is evolving and the use of data for decision making is increasing,” says Luke Cook, HamiltonJet’s global aftersales manager. “Platforms such as Overwatch take data that would be historically available exclusively to those onboard the vessel and democratises it. The ability to use any device to see in real time where your vessels are operating, their current conditions and equipment performance is a major shift in industry expectations.”

Tomorrow (09:45) sees a Seawork conference session focussed on green technology. That will look at the impact of regulatory changes for workboats and how this is driving change. Speaking to this topic will be Rob Taylor, from the MCA, who will outline the regulatory framework for green technology; Francesco Sandrelli, UK Chamber of Shipping, discussing the Clean Maritime Plan; and Brian Bates, Eminox, who will consider the changes needed to engine and vessel design to benefit from alternative fuels; plus more.

Keep up to date with which boat shows are happening, when and where.

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