NEWTHEX
DOORWAYS TO DUTCH PRECISION
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NEWTHEX
I
PROFILE
DOORWAYS to
DUTCH PRECISION
With clients spanning both the superyacht and naval industries, Netherlandsbased Newthex enjoys a uniquely comprehensive level of participation within the sector. Managing Director Jeroen Mulder spoke to Richard Hagan about the company’s unique product and service offerings.
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ewthex is a specialist in the design and production of weather and watertight doors, hatches and lifting systems for the superyacht and naval industries. Having originally been founded in the early 2000s, the company initially specialised in the design, fabrication and installation of watertight hinged-door systems. Over time, it has evolved into designing and manufacturing large hull doors and watertight hatches and today it also offers a number of other interesting solutions to the naval and yachting sectors. When it comes to large hull doors in the superyacht market specifically, design attention has increasingly fallen on an area which has become known as the ‘beach club’, located at the very stern of the yacht. This is a space that is at the waterline and which can take an almost infinite number of forms, but in principle, it’s like an open-plan living space that flows from the inside of the yacht, to the outside and allows guests to have direct access to the water. Beach clubs have evolved to include amenities such as large social areas, cocktail bars, spas and gyms. Since beach clubs encompass both interior and exterior spaces, and since they’re located at the yacht’s waterline, they cannot exist without large, watertight hull doors. These are the same hull doors that Newthex specialises in designing, manufacturing, assembling and installing. 2
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The rise in popularity of beach clubs has meant that equipment such as tenders – normally stored at the stern – now have to be stored in other areas of the yacht, such as in dedicated garages in the bow. This requires another set of large watertight hull doors to allow access for the tenders and their launch equipment.
The art of simplicity With the large number of doors required on large, modern superyachts, and all of the moving parts involved, ensuring faultless mechanical performance is critical. “Everything that you make foldable becomes an opportunity for a breakdown,” highlighted the company’s Managing Director, Jeroen Mulder. “For that reason, we use as few parts as possible. The fewer parts you use in the manufacturing of these things, the less opportunity there is for failures or breakdowns.” This is especially important given the increasing size of superyachts. “We’ve definitely seen a trend that these components are getting bigger,” he continued. “With bigger doors and hatches comes the need for bigger drives, bigger axles and more hydraulics.” Newthex resolves this challenge by standardising the design of its systems. “Whether it’s a six-metre or twelve-metre long platform, you still have a drive system with a number of locking
cylinders. Whether it’s a tender garage door or a beach club door, or a hull door on a naval vessel, the systems we use and the design principles are very similar,” said Mr Mulder.
A compact, powerful team The Newthex team is relatively compact and consists of 25 professionals, all specialising in particular disciplines. The company’s beating heart is its engineering department. “It’s our biggest and most important department; it’s where the concepts are developed,” Mr Mulder remarked. Meanwhile, its growing project management department is the interface between the company’s engineering department and its customers, as Mr Mulder confirmed: “We’ve recently further developed our project management department through adding more project managers to allow us to better serve our clients. It gives us more of a focused client service approach.” In terms of production, Newthex maintains close relationships with a network of specialist manufacturing partners who are entrusted with the heavy manufacturing of all of its projects. Every completed project is delivered to the Newthex premises where it is assembled and tested by the company’s expert team of specialists who ensure every product carrying the Newthex stamp meets the company’s exacting standards. Inside Marine
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NEWTHEX
I
PROFILE
The testing process followed by Newthex is precise and measurable. Known by the acronym ‘FAT’, short for Factory Acceptance Test. The process is carried out in the presence of client and ship owner representatives. Each door is attached to the Newthex test rig and assembled in such a way that it is an accurate working setup of all the actual hydraulic parts and other components required for that specific door. The door itself is then evaluated for correct movement, speed and hydraulic pressure as well as for water tightness. By performing all of these tests at the factory, the shipyard saves assembly time, which is a significant benefit for the yard. Products that successfully make it through the FAT are then proudly shipped off to customer shipyards all over the world including Holland, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Turkey, UK, US, China and India.
Catching a lift before take-off Mr Mulder highlighted Newthex’s brand new helicopter hangar lift solution as indicative of the company’s unique engineering depth and creativity. “It’s a platform that lowers a helicopter into the hangar, and we then close the hatch on top of that. It’s a big project. The whole platform is operated by one large hydraulic cylinder which pushes itself up and down along the four cables mounted to the frame and the platform.” 4
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With superyachts steadily becoming bigger, the demand for helicopter lifts is an emerging demand, noted Mr Mulder: “It’s an interesting trend that we’ve started seeing in superyachts. We’re definitely getting interest for more of them and in fact, we’ve just signed a contract for another one.” In the meantime, Newthex’s engineers are also developing a solution for a hull dock door that will allow a superyacht’s tender to drive straight into the stern of the vessel. It’s all in a day’s work when you’re an engineer at the cutting edge of bespoke hull door engineering!
In the navy Newthex is uniquely positioned to serve both naval and superyacht category clients, with a market share that is roughly equally spread between both. But as Mr Mulder pointed out, while the company is grateful for the diversity in its market, naval contracts have their own challenges. “We’ve always enjoyed a balance between yachting and naval projects, but we’re definitely seeing an increasing number of enquiries for naval vessels,” he remarked. “The challenge is the lead times involved between the enquiry and the awarding of the contract; and then the contract itself is typically very long in duration, so you need to be very patient. “We are currently working on a large project for a foreign navy,” he continued. “The period of negotiation – from enquiry to signing
– took three to four years, and the contract duration now is for five years. And that scenario is the same whether it’s in Holland or elsewhere in Europe.” On the other hand, he added, naval projects tend to be somewhat less complex than yachting projects. “Naval vessels are less complicated but the projects are of long duration because they’re for more than one vessel. Yachting, in contrast, is all oneoff. The systems we deliver for them are not very complicated but the detailing for them makes it so.” In closing, Mr Mulder drew attention to the company’s diverse client base as being a major reason why he feels optimistic about the future. “Our combination of naval and superyacht industry projects puts us in an interesting niche. We’re even slowly getting interest from the cruise ship industry too. “Some of our competitors deliver thousands of watertight doors per year, and they’re very good at that. We don’t do that kind of volume and standard items; our organisation is not setup for that. But if clients want a special door with a slightly different size, layout or weight, or anything else special, Newthex is ready to take their call.” n
Managing Director Jeroen Mulder
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