Brasal Marine Services Ltd

MV Skip - service/salvage craft

Cyprus has to be an ideal location to provide a base for a major underwater contractor operating in the eastern Mediterranean. This is Brasal's unique and privileged location, in the heart of Limassol's new harbour, on the south coast of Cyprus.

The company is now in the capable hands of the second generation the Branco diving family. Eduardo Branco inherited the company from his famous diving father, who had started the company in 1955. Mr Branco Senior's original Heinke standard diving helmet is carefully preserved as the company's good-luck charm, whilst today, Brasal's fully-certified divers have the luxury of state-of-the-art surface demand gear.

Now, as the leading underwater contracting company in Cyprus, Brasal can boast a formidable track record of achievement spread over the past 42 years. Their experience covers a wide variety of underwater capabilities including pipeline assembly and installation, land reclamation, maintenance and repairs of moorings, dredging and air-lifting, pile driving, underwater concreting, cutting and welding, surveys, repairs and salvage.

A refurbished, 10ft, Trinity House-type buoy is lifted out from the deck of M/V Skip for re-installation

Their principal surface support vessel is the M/V Skip, a 40 metre, converted landing craft with a three-point anchoring capability backed up by three further special-purpose vessels for survey, anti-pollution and rope-handling operations.

Your editor had the opportunity to observe one of Brasal's routine buoy maintenance operations in September and I was able to witness their highly professional skills in action. Key words which immediately came to mind in describing their style of operation were, quality, reliability, safety and customer-orientation. What more could you ask for!

The client this time was the Ministry of Defence Salvage and Mooring Organisation (SMO) who provide a series of perimeter-marking buoys near the RAF base at Akrotiri. These buoys are the typical Trinity House, 10ft navigational buoys together with bridle, ground chain and mooring anchor which the SMO use all around the world in large numbers. The M/V Skip was able to lift each buoy, as well as its anchoring system, onto its spacious deck for the routine inspection and maintenance. The onboard diving facility conveniently provided the post-installation sea-bed checks. M/V Skip was fully committed with several projects programmed in quick succession. No sooner was the MoD buoying project completed than the vessel disappeared up the coast for an urgent tanker-mooring buoy maintenance task.

Basal have managed to develop a high-quality, cost-effective mode of operation and their busy schedule confirms the success of their particular formula. You do not achieve this sort of commercial stability in the underwater contracting business just by chance. Basal have clearly put considerable emphasis into evolving their operations to precisely meet and match individual client requirements. And I have to hand it to them, they've got it absolutely right!

BRASAL MARINE SERVICES LIMITED VESSELS M/V SKIP Anchor handling salvage & diving craft M/V EDINOS Pusher cat type vessel Diving and anti-pollution M/Y EDMALOU Diving and Survey launch BEAVER Rope handling push/pull tug SALVAGE EQUIPMENT optionally installed on M/V SKIP DIVING EQUIPMENT installed on M/V SKIP