Falmouth boasts one of the world's deepest natural harbours. As such, it sees a range of shipping come and go whilst facilities and expertise have developed over the life of the port to cater for these vessels. The docks at Falmouth offer dry docking facilities for essential ship maintenance and repair but in tandem with these facilities is a specialist ship repair firm that offers an impressive array of services without the need for the ship to be dry docked at all.

Sub Marine Servicesspecialise in in-water ship repairs, surveys and maintenance. Their highly skilled diving and support staff can conduct an impressive array of ship repair tasks underwater completely removing the need to dry-dock which is an expensive business. Their work falls under several broad categories.



Ship Husbandry

Sub Marine Services undertake necessary maintenance work on vessels aimed at preserving their performance, extending the working life of the ship and keeping vessels operating as efficiently as possible. For as long as people have been at sea the issue of "fouling" has been known to affect a ship's performance with hulls attracting weed and other items that collectively increase the "drag" of the hull through the water. Similarly, ships' propellers will become coated over time, changing their hydro dynamic properties and affecting the thrust they provide.

Sub Marine Services offer in-water hull cleaning and propeller polishing using a combination of skilled divers and specially designed equipment. Being in water the machines have natural lubrication to assist their work and create a water "vortex" that literally strips away impurities without abrasion - preserving the hull and propeller whilst efficiently cleaning them. A propeller cleaned in this way offers a power efficiency improvement of 10 - 20% with accompanying bunker fuel savings of 3 - 8%. Similarly, reducing the drag of the hull will significantly improve the efficiency of the ship's propulsion.


Underwater Survey

Any vessel's hull undergoes considerable stresses over time and must be checked regularly.Sub Marine Services can conduct detailed in-water surveys with the vessel in the water, with divers able to take magnetic particle samples for analysis as well as conducting detailed examination of the hull. Such inspections result in a detailed professional report, supported by video footage and audio commentary of the diver conducting the survey.





Underwater Repairs

Sub Marine Services can offer an impressive array of underwater ship repair services, including some quite large tasks you might not expect! One of their "specialisms" is propeller blade replacement, which involves removing the existing blade and replacing it with a new one. This task would traditionally have involved dry docking but Sub Marine Services have developed techniques to carry out this complicated evolution underwater. Having accomplished this, it is hardly surprising that they are capable of other techniques including wet welding, aperture blanking, bilge keel cropping and anode replacement. A quality repair in-water is preferable, if it can be managed, to waiting for a free slot in dry dock (they tend to be pretty well booked resources) as time is money in the shipping industry as any other!






Marine Civil Engineering

Alongside the ship-based projects,Sub Marine Services has considerable expertise in marine civil engineering projects, using its diving expertise to survey and inspect underwater structures and conduct maintenance (dock gates being a good example). The company can also carry out dredging using suction, backhoe and grab dredgers. The company has experience of piling, pontoon and bridge work, land reclamation projects and quay walls making them an excellent company to contact for civil engineering requirements by, on or under the water.




Floating Plant & Equipment

The services offered by the company mean that they have gathered a collection of specialist equipment to support their work. These include a tug, crane barge, and diving support vessel. This equipment is key to the flexible approach Sub Marine Services is able to bring to the variety of projects and contracts it undertakes.






Propeller Blade Replacement