SAFEHAVEN DELIVER AN INTERCEPTOR 48 PILOT BOAT TO FONNES BATSERVICE IN NORWAY
Safehaven Marine have delivered an Interceptor 48 pilot boat to Fonnes Batservice of Norway. She is Safehaven’s 41st pilot boat delivered and the 16th Interceptor 48 pilot. To comply with Norwegian regulations she features a new wheel house design featuring f/wd angled front windows and increased accommodation space in her main cabin. Powered by a pair of Scania DI13 500hp rating 1 engines she had a max speed of 26kts on trials. Also fitted with Twin Discs Quickshift gearboxes and dynamic manoeuvring system working in conjunction with a powerful hydraulic bow thruster. As crew transfer as well as pilotage is part of her operational role she has seating for 9 persons in her main cabin and full live aboard facilities in a spacious forward accommodation area.
‘Maskulin’ arrived safely in Norway Sunday evening 1st December at 7pm completing his 850nm delivery voyage in just 48hrs after departing Cork at 7pm Friday evening. Seen here tied up alongside Tommy’s first Safehaven vessel, ‘Feminin’, a Wildcat 53 he took delivery of 5 years ago. Tommy made amazing time, stopping for refuelling on the North East coast of Ireland, North West Coast of Scotland and the Shetland Islands, and even though he had to contend with gale conditions and 3-4m seas Sunday in the North sea crossing, he was able to maintain a 23kts cruise speed, and using just 65L/hr each engine ‘Maskulin’ proved to be very economical.
Whilst in Ireland and in preparation for his winter time delivery voyage with commitments necessitating no departure delay and anticipating some inevitable heavy weather on route in the North Sea, we thoroughly tested her together in a winter storm that hit Southern Ireland where she proved to have excellent seakeeping in the 6m seas and 45kts wind the storm delivered, as seen in the accompanying photos, with Tommy at the helm himself commenting afterwards “Maskulin’s handling and seakeeping during the trials was fantastic, I am really delighted with her, Safehaven Marine did a great job building her, just as they did with my Wildcat 53 ‘Feminin’ which has been perfect during the last 5 years for me”.
Maskulin is also fitted with a Humphree full interceptor stabilisation system, which proved excellent in reducing roll and pitching and proved itself on the delivery voyage. Safehaven Marine wish Tommy the very best in the future with his new Interceptor 48 and older Wildcat 53.
