UK builder wins Queen’s Award for Enterprise

Wight Shipyard recognised for outstanding short-term growth in exports

Susie Sheldon JP and Peter Morton, Wight Shipyard CEO

The Wight Shipyard Co in the UK was presented with a Queen’s Award for Enterprise last week for International Trade.

The award was handed out by Susie Sheldon JP, Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of the Isle of Wight, in a ceremony at the shipyard in East Cowes. The award was in particular recognition of outstanding short-term growth in the export market.

Receiving the award, Wight Shipyard CEO Peter Morton said: “We are delighted to accept this prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the International Trade category on behalf of everyone at the yard who are very much part of the re-birth of the British shipbuilding industry.

“We set out to stem the tide of orders going to overseas yards and to capitalise on the local skills that we are fortunate to have on the Isle of Wight.”

The Wight Shipyard Co is one of 205 organisations nationally that have been recognised in the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise, having been set up in 2010 after the restoration of a classic gentleman’s motor cruiser for Sir Charles Dunstone, one of the country’s leading entrepreneurs and whose family office is the main backer of the yard.

Following the successful completion of that project, discussions began with the owners of Red Funnel about the construction of the new Red Jet fleet of fast catamarans servicing the Isle of Wight and to date two have been built and continue to be serviced at the yard.

Orders quickly followed for two Thames Clippers with the yard proving its capabilities in high-tech aluminium construction, but the big success has been in effectively competing internationally with overseas yards.

Exports to date include two 450 pax ferries for Mexico, a 40m vessel for Austria and four vessels for Malta with 50% of Wight Shipyard Co revenue coming from export over the last five years.

Looking forward, the yard has recently signed an order for two more high-speed ferries and two 24m aluminium explorer vessels alongside building and delivering a hybrid wind farm support vessel capable of significant speed advantages and considerable fuel savings.

source:ibi