A new presence in Scotland’s marine hydraulics business has several lifetimes worth of experience behind it. The DE of DE Marine Hydraulics is Drew Elphinstone, who set the company up in Fraserburgh just two years ago, initially as a solo venture – and now there are half a dozen staff working for him who are busy across Scotland.
‘We’re primarily servicing hydraulic deck machinery and systems for fishing vessels, pelagic and demersal. That’s mainly winches, cranes, associated control systems, etc.’ said the company’s technical manager Julian Ramsey.
‘Between us all, including Ryan, Dan and Sebastian, the team here at DE Marine Hydraulics has over 75 years of experience in the business. We’re also able to do some manufacturing, which means we can design and produce equipment to order with a third party manufacturer we’ve known for decades,’ he said.
In addition to servicing systems, DE Marine Hydraulics has distribution/service agreements for the UK and Ireland with Spanish marine crane manufacturer Toimil, Norwegian autotrawl systems producer Scantrol, Norwegian hydraulic valve manufacturer Servi, Canadian winch manufacturer Pullmaster and Norwegian deck machinery manufacturer Hydema AS.
‘There’s not much that we can’t do between all of us on the team. A lot of our bread and butter work is here in Fraserburgh and Peterhead, but not everyone brings the boat back home every time, so we can travel anywhere in Scotland in a few hours. We’re also sending staff to Ireland, and further afield to Namibia and South Africa, to service equipment on boats docked there,’ Julian Ramsey said, adding that there are enquiries coming in to outfit small-scale newbuilds, as well as a steady stream of enquiries for winches, cranes, pot-haulers, line-haulers, valves, and more, plus some interesting orders for hydraulic machinery for pipe handling systems.
DE Marine’s first appearance at the Scottish Skipper Expo was two years ago, on Scantrol’s stand.
‘This year we’ll be making a bigger effort at the exhibition. We’ll still be there with Scantrol, but this time we hope to draw a lot more attention to ourselves now that the company is established and we’re busy all across Scotland,’ he said.
