It’s all about electricity for Naust Marine, based in Iceland, which put all its efforts in to developing electrical winch systems back when hydraulics were king. It turned out that they were right to put their faith in electrical systems, now that virtually every winch manufacturer is moving in this direction.
According to the company’s sales and marketing director, former trawler skipper Helgi Kristjánsson, Naust Marine for many years co-operated with Spanish company Ibercisa, as the sub-contractor for the building deck equipment, while supplying its own electrical and control systems.
Naust Marine always had ambitions to supply complete packages and a couple of years ago began producing its own deck hardware rather than seeking to work with another manufacturer, sub-contracting production for projects in far-flung parts of the world, as well as establishing production as Naust Serbia.
But now Naust Marine is back in Vigo, having established a new company, Naust Marine Spain, staffed by a group of engineers with a long background in this business, plus an agreement with Pontevedra-based fabricator ThuneEureka.
‘This is a big steel fabrication specialist able to produce and test, and we have reserved production capacity with them, plus we can also use our Serbian fabricator as well – but in logistic terms, having production in Galicia is a big advantage,’ Helgi Kristjánsson said.
According to Ramón Carreira who manages Naust Spain, set up at the end of last year, the Vigo side of the operation brings an innovative design team to the partnership, with experience of both electric and hydraulic winch systems for both fishing and other markets, as well as its proximity to Thune Eureka’s manufacturing capacity.
‘We choose Thune Eureka because they have experience building this kind of winch equipment, they are fully certificated, and will guarantee us a minimum of 25,000 hours per year, with priority on the production line. Having this as part of our structure without the fixed costs of production means that we can approach the market with competitive prices,’ Ramón Carreira said.
Check out the latest (completely free) issue of Hook & Net for the whole interview with Helgi Kristjánsson and Ramón Carreira at Naust Marine.
