Seafast

SUPERIOR MARINE SUPPORT

ABOVE AND BELOW THE SURFACE

Seafast group of companies provides the right people, skills and equipment to successfully deliver projects of any size in the oil and gas, renewables, marine, shipping, nuclear and civil engineering industries. Hannah Barnett spoke to Managing Director of Seafast Maritime Iain Beaton and Operations Director of Fort William Underwater Trials Centre John MacLellan to find out more.

Seafast supplies vessels for marine projects, helping to create long-term relationships with a diverse range of clients including commercial organisations and government agencies. The company has worked with some of the largest main contractors and blue-chip clients worldwide, earning them an enviable reputation for high-quality, safe work.

The group consists of Seafast Maritime, its sister company Caldive, and the Underwater

Trials Centre (UTC) in Fort William, which all now operate together under the Seafast umbrella. As a result, where in the past Seafast relied on subcontractors, the company now offers a breadth of services.

“We are proud to provide a turnkey service and it is something that clients like,” said Iain Beaton, Managing Director. “Instead of them bringing in three or four different contractors, we are now a onestop-shop. This reduces a huge amount of risk and makes the clients lives easier.”

A brief history of Seafast

The company started in 2002 as Caldive, then a small diving contractor.

In 2018, the company bought a large offshore vessel, Isle of Jura, geared towards renewables service, anchor handling, dredging, towing, hose handling and surveys. “That was the first step in a long journey,” said Mr Beaton. “Now, we’re diving off our own vessels, the projects that we’re undertaking are increasing in number and scale, and we’re growing the fleet.”

In the same year, Seafast took over the assets of a former underwater training company in Fort William and the successful UTC was born.

SEAFAST I PROFILE

According to Mr Beaton, the way Seafast has evolved is more serendipitous than strategic: “In the last few years, we’ve seen ourselves turn – without ever planning it – into a marine services group providing divers, ships and ROVs, as well as underwater trials.”

The company also has an ongoing joint venture with survey company SEP Hydrographic, which provides its in-house marine survey capability. Seafast’s growth and expansion is supported by a healthy £9.2 million turnover.

Excellent services

Testing new equipment and methodology is vital work in an offshore environment, whether it be oil and gas, or renewables related. With four inspection-class Seaeye Falcon ROVs available to hire at its UTC in Fort William, the company has added another feather to its cap. All chartered systems have trained pilot technicians and a support crew.

The unrivalled location, facilities and support at Fort William are designed to help companies large and small get the very best from their testing programme. The facility offers testing and evaluation services for anything subsea – from autonomous vehicles, through to rescue submarines and any other type of subsea instrumentation.

“The underwater testing and evaluation trials company is pretty special,” said Mr Beaton. “There is not another facility like it in Europe. We have clients

come to us now from all over the world to use the facilities at Fort William. That part of the business is growing very rapidly.”

John MacLellan is the Operations Director, overseeing Fort William UTC. He explained how the company maintains its good track record partly thanks to the benefits of working with ROVs: “The biggest advantage is that we can use SONAR on the vehicles to locate assets subsea, whereas it would probably take a diver much longer to locate something. We’re not restricted so much by depth or bottom time, though we are restricted by dexterity getting in and about.”

ROVs provide the supervisor an overall picture of the dive site that is more efficient than each diver wearing a camera. The picture can also be used to assess the safety of the divers in a restricted space.

However; for Seafast, autonomous vehicles exist to complement the work of humans, not replace it.

“We’ve just finished a project where divers and ROVs were working together from one of our vessels, at an offshore floating wind farm,” said Mr Beaton. “This new technology supports the renewables sector. The ROV was able to carry out the work that was too deep for the divers while working alongside them. It was a great combination, and means the divers are still there to do the jobs that are more hands-on.”

Reflecting the times, renewables are now a large part of Seafast’s business too. The company started in the sector supporting the construction of new wind farms and installation of subsea cables. Nowadays, it is more involved in the offshore maintenance and repair side, which will continue to form an important element of the company’s future growth strategy.

Strength in numbers

Seafast has built strong, long-term relationships with its supply chain; something which the company owes a portion of its

success to. “Having a network of trusted suppliers is hugely important to us,” said Mr Beaton. “We have companies that look after all our steel fabrication. We’ve got companies that look after our transport, our ship maintenance and our electronics: and it’s the same people that we’ve used for 20 years or more. They are usually local to us as well.”

Another vital aspect of Seafast’s success is the tenacity of those that run it. “We have a trustworthy reputation, and are known for our quality and transparency,” said Mr MacLellan. “I think we tick all the boxes. We are not a big company, but we have a very good team of highly skilled individuals.”

“The most significant part of our operation is our team,” Mr Beaton agreed. “We have our site guys, our divers, our vessel people, our supervisors and the management; and all of that is supported by an unbelievably capable admin system. The office here is so well run. Truly, the capability that we’ve got in-house is phenomenal.”

Seafast is clearly well-equipped to continue its trajectory of strong, sustainable growth. The company also has goals to expand its staff, continue to expand the

range of services on offer and increase marketing promotion, which drove a recent visit to SPE Offshore in Aberdeen in September.

Ultimately, though, it is the skill with which Seafast delivers its services that makes the company so dynamic.

“It’s great to be able to provide a service that can actually solve an individual’s problems,” said Mr MacLellan. “Knowing a customer is happy with my project, having completed the scope successfully, on time and on budget, is very rewarding.”

“I like meeting new challenges,” Mr Beaton concluded. “It’s great when we have the chance to tackle something with an element of challenge about it: and doing it with such a good team, with all this capability and enthusiasm behind me ensures a successful outcome. It is tremendous: after decades working in this industry, for me, the buzz is still there.” n