Script for Corilla Marine Buoys video
Starts:
Around the coast of Britain, ageing metal navigation buoys are being replaced by lighter, more durable and less expensive plastic buoys, designed and manufactured by British company, Corilla.
Trinity House, based in Harwich, is the world's most respected lighthouse authority. Steeped in hundreds of years of tradition, it does not make changes lightly. However, after a year's rigorous trials of this new technology, it is replacing some of its steel navigation buoys with Corilla’s innovative plastic buoys.
Today five marine class 2 buoys are being deployed 10 miles off the Kent coast.
[David Heath, Project Manager, Trinity House] ”What we’re doing here is we’re swapping out our old style steel buoys for new technology plastic ones basically because it’s less maintenance and of course reducing costs. The old steel ones are very labour and maintenance intensive we have to bring them in every 5 years for repainting and refurbishing and we believe that these plastic ones are able to stay at sea for a longer period probably up to 20 years. “
The plastic buoys have many advantages over their metal ancestors – they don't rust, don't need painting and most importantly, can be cleaned at sea: there's no need for the buoys to be brought back to dry land for expensive maintenance. They're much lighter than steel buoys too and this means they can use lighter moorings, so less chain wear.
The plastic marine buoys have saved one port authority around £90,000 over 5 years in service boat and crewing costs and up to £4,500 per buoy in servicing costs over the same 5 year period.
Manufactured in the heart of England, each section of a buoy is rotationally moulded. Specially made steel tools are loaded with coloured polyethylene powder and clamped before entering an oven. Then, before assembly, each section of the collar is filled with marine grade foam, ensuring that the buoy remains afloat, even if it is struck by a vessel.
Teesport on the northeast coast of England is Britain’s second biggest port with some 56 million tonnes of shipping moving through its waters every year. Here, plastic buoys are an established feature. The port authority have been using various sizes of plastic buoy for a number of years and they have proved to be a massive success.
[John Fawcett, PD Teesport] “We introduced plastic buoys as a replacement for the steel buoys in the late 90’s. We saw them as a way ahead in reducing maintenance costs, manpower and reliability. We found that the steel buoys on average took about 2 days to clean, repaint. We would do that one day and go back the next day and have to gloss them. Where we can clean 4 plastic buoys a day, steam clean them, pressure wash them off, check the moorings, check the character on the light and on average 4 in a 12 hour day”. “We had a lot of traditionalists within the company that use the river. We found over time that they warmed to the plastic buoys. There’s no turning back now.”
Plastic marker buoys will serve the sea for generations. Their inherent advantages make them the obvious choice for the future. The challenge is there for port authorities around the world: when will you join the plastic revolution?
Contact Corilla Plastics and discover how the companies innovative and collaborative approach is a winning combination serving clients all over the world
End frame
