Custom Ship Covers & Winch Covers

Most of what we make is weather-exposed, so the equipment underneath isn’t. RAS winch covers and accommodation ladder winch covers do that job on exposed deck gear, and those winches are lifting equipment in their own right, examined under our Marine LOLER 2006 inspections. Gangway screens and ceremonial covers are different, as everyone who comes aboard sees them, so they have to look right as well as fit. Perry buoy covers and below-deck screens make up the rest of the regular work.

All the covers we supply must protect against weather, salt spray, ultraviolet exposure, and contamination. The common failure is a cover that protects the top of an item while letting salt water sit underneath it, so shape, drainage and how the cover sits on the equipment matter as much as the material it is cut from.

Covers are produced from drawings, from templates, or from dimensions measured on the item itself, whichever you can supply. A drawing is quickest where one exists. However, where the shape is awkward, a template taken off the equipment will beat a measurement every time, and for most deck gear a set of dimensions and a few photographs is plenty. Tell us what you have, and we will tell you what else we need.

We build to your specification, not to whatever the workshop has to hand. Dimensions, materials, colours, markings and securing arrangements are all agreed in advance, so the cover matches vessel standards when it arrives. Where a set has to stay consistent across a class of vessel, the specification is recorded so the tenth cover matches the first.

Material selection is led by where the cover will live and what it has to resist. We choose options for durability, fire retardancy, water resistance, and abrasion resistance, weighted to the application, because a cover on a ceremonial gangway and a cover on a working winch are not fighting the same things.

Fire retardancy in particular is a specification item rather than an assumption. Where required, we supply to the stated standard rather than something described as equivalent, and we confirm the material meets that requirement before manufacture starts.

Somebody has to handle this cover in poor weather, often at night, and that is who we design for. We reinforce the seams where the load and the chafe actually fall. Fastenings have to hold in wind and still work with gloved hands. Access panels go where the routine checks happen, so nobody strips a whole cover off to reach one grease point.

We agree on the securing arrangements with you rather than assuming them, because what holds on one vessel’s deck fittings is useless on another’s. If a cover keeps coming adrift or wearing through in the same spot, that’s a design fault rather than bad luck, so we would rather fix it in the next one than keep making the same cover twice.

An existing cover that is sound apart from a failed seam or a worn panel is usually worth refurbishing rather than replacing, and we repair covers as readily as we make them. If a cover is beyond repair, we can manufacture a replacement from the original pattern, if available, to keep the fit and specification consistent with the rest of the set.

Supply runs from a single replacement to a complete vessel set, with repeat orders taken against the pattern and specification on file. Production and delivery are coordinated around vessel maintenance and refit schedules, so covers arrive when the equipment is ready to fit them rather than sitting in storage. When the same refit needs rigging or parts supplied, that runs through our ship rigging and NSN parts service.