First in Freefall Report interviews the first and only aluminium
Freefall lifeboat builder in the world and outlines how MARIN helped validate its latest lifeboats.
These days the company builds a complete range of lifeboats from the smallest ones for 6-12 people of 8.5 m to those for 50-70 people of 16 m. They all have seats designed for people weighing 100 kg, which is well above the SOLAS requirement of 82.5 kg. Verhoef also fabricates its own launching cradles and recovery systems and provide all the hydraulic/electrics required. The life- boat launching recovery system is all in one unit, which is also unique in the industry.
E Martin Verhoef 6 report
stablished 75 years ago, Verhoef Aluminium is a truly unique company being the one builder of
aluminium Freefall lifeboats in the world.
This family-owned Dutch company was founded by Joost Verhoef and today is run by his two sons Martin and Joop, together with vice commercial director Ruud Schwegler. Although Verhoef now has a global presence from Alaska to New Zealand, being active in 70 countries, and has many global companies amongst its clients such as Maersk Oil & Gas, Shell and Statoil to name a few, its pioneering Freefall lifeboat concept took a while to take off.
Martin Verhoef, Chief Executive Officer, reflects on the development of this life saving technology. After many years building open aluminium lifeboats - in fact more than 5,000 - his father came up with the idea of launching a totally closed, self-righting Freefall lifeboat in the early sixties. This was in contrast to the traditional method of lowering an open lifeboat by a davit system. The Freefall lifeboat idea however, was unfortunately far ahead of its time, he says. There was no legislation in place to support such a concept and the industry was fairly sceptical in the early days.
Self-righting Business continued with its traditional lifeboats for many decades and its other major core activity building
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