Hodge Clemco Completes £600,000 Finishing Plant Contract

Hodge Clemco has completed the installation of a turn-key surface preparation and finishing facility in a new buoy maintenance unit opened by Trinity House at Harwich, Essex.

The £600,000 contract includes a blast room, a dry-filter combination spray and cure booth, a separate paint drying/curing booth, a hand paint booth, a compressed air package and a paint services and store booth.   

Trinity House provides nearly 600 fixed and floating aids to navigation around the coast of the UK and Gibraltar and in the Thames Estuary, including 450 buoys for marking shipping lanes, hazards and other purposes.  The buoys carry visual and audible warning systems chosen according to the situation where they are deployed.  With the tail tube stabiliser fitted and other equipment in place, the largest models are over 15 metres high and weigh about 11 tonnes.  All the buoys are periodically retrieved for repair and refurbishment, which requires the maintenance facility to complete two units a week.