KISS: A Success for Schat-Harding

Schat-Harding has seen offshore sector business boom on the back of a hundred new KISS systems ordered for projects world wide. Examples of recent contracts include six KISS800 boats and FAD 1000 davits and winches for Mexico's Pemex and two KISS boats and davits for Brasil's Petrobras. "KISS has been a huge success," says Hans Martin Hjelmeland, offshore manager for Schat-Harding. "Many offshore contractors want the robust simplicity that KISS offers. But we have also seen high demand for our Freefall systems in general and we have recently secured new offshore contracts for three FF1000 drop systems for the UK Ecana Buzzard project, and one FF1000 drop system for the ConocoPhillips 2/4M Norwegian project."

"Service and upgrading for the rig market has also been busy recently. We have been chosen for several contracts by Transocean, refurbishing old MCR lifeboats to the latest regulations and also to supply new MCB lifeboats for Transocean's Polar Pioneer and Transocean Artic," explains Hjelmeland.

Developed in 2000, the KISS system is a series of simple, easy-to-maintain and space-saving boats and davits for the offshore and merchant marine industries. Keep it Safe and Simple is the philosophy behind the new system. Keeping seafarers and offshore oil workers safe demands the input of the highest technology. But the simpler the actual equipment which crews have to maintain and use, the safer they will be. So Schat-Harding has invested its experience of design and materials in developing a range of boats and davits that save on space, weight and complication, yet increasing the level of safety.

Schat-Harding's experience and new technology have been combined to optimise design in a way which saves considerable weight, which is at a premium on offshore units. The KISS system occupies twenty per cent less space than current systems of the same capacity. It also weighs twenty per cent less. And maintenance is twenty per cent less too, with cassette replacement of parts and simplified systems.