Red Funnel Day

Anyone travelling to the Isle of Wight over the past 150 years will have come into contact with the Red Funnel line which operates the ferry services between Cowes and Southampton.

The company operates three car ferries that carry 200 cars and 800 passengers on the 55 minute journey. To supplement these, the company has three Red Jet Hi-speed catamarans that complete the journey in just 25 minutes. Between them, the ships carry 3,000,000 passengers on 37,000 journeys, covering a staggering 724,000 kilometres every year on this relatively short-haul crossing.

Responsibility for maintaining the seaworthiness of these vessels falls to Supervising Engineer Steve Gillett. “We usually run two vessels of each class on the regular service and bring the third vessel into action when it gets busy. This allows time for maintenance on a rotating basis for each craft. We run a big engineering section at the company to ensure everything runs safely and smoothly. However even the best laid plans can't foresee a parts failure, which is where Pirtek Southampton provide such a vital part of our maintenance programme,” Gillett says. “They have often attended an out of hours call out, and they always seem to have those odd parts that we don't have in our stores, including US Imperial and even odd, very fine French threaded fixtures."

Gillett’s sentiments are echoed by Maintenance Supervisor Steve Day. "For years we have used the Pirtek Southampton trade counter to help us track down parts. But recently, we have also started to use the on-site service which has proved equally excellent,” Steve Day concludes. “Thankfully we don't have to call them out very often but when we do they are not just quick but they have proved they have a very clear understanding of the marine sector and its needs.”