Europe’s leading high-speed watercraft and aluminium ship builder, Wight Shipyard Co, is located in East Cowes, Isle of Wight. Since its founding in 2010, Wight Shipyard has delivered Red Funnel’s 41 metre high-speed ferry Red Jet 6 and two of Thames Clippers’ 172 capacity passenger vessels (Mercury and Jupiter Clipper). 

Beckett Rankine was appointed to design the shipyard infrastructure that would accommodate a new 260-tonne ship hoist. The previous hoist had a much lower capacity of 70 tonnes, meaning cranes needed to be hired for lifting operations involving larger vessels.  

The works involved demolishing the previous infrastructure, strengthening quay walls, and installing new pier fingers to support the hoist. The new pier fingers consist of 2.5m x 1.15m reinforced concrete beams supported on tubular steel piles, which extend approximately 40m into the sea. 

The piling works, undertaken by Knights Brown, and the installation of the hoist beams and quayside strengthening works took place in 2022. After completion, the first commercial lift of Red Jet 4 was undertaken on 17th January 2023.