National Maritime College signs German deal

A major deal struck by the National Maritime College could signal Ireland’s arrival as world-leaders in safety training for personnel involved in the offshore gas and oil exploration sectors.

The National Maritime College of Ireland, and its joint venture Irish partner SEFtec, have landed a major contract to build a marine safety training centre in Germany.

It will be modelled on the modern National Maritime College training centre in Ringaskiddy, Co Cork, and it is hoped it will showcase Irish expertise to the rest of Europe, resulting in many more significant orders.

The deal has been struck with German maritime training company MACO, which is the training arm of Hamburg Port and the Hamburg Seaman’s Union. It is one of Germany’s leading providers of maritime professionals.

The manufacture of the pool and firefighting units will be carried out in Cork and will be transported to Germany in kit form and reassembled.

The Irish partners have already completed similar projects in the United Arab Emirates, Angola, Ukraine, and the Canary Islands.

National Maritime College boss Conor Mowlds said the German contract was “a big coup for us”.

He said the UK has, up to now, been a traditional market for college training courses and while a lot of their British customers will remain there was a need to look elsewhere post-Brexit.

“Mainland Europe is where we must look now. We can’t afford to wait and see what happens post-Brexit and we are changing focus to a presence in Europe,” he said.

Mr Mowlds described the German contract as a“flagship project because of the prestige of MACO and said it would “send out a very strong signal to the rest of the European market” about the National Maritime College/SEFtec’s prowess.

Mr Mowlds said the joint venture company, which was formed between NMCI and Crosshaven-based SEFtec in 2010 and known as the National Maritime College Offshore, was now marketing itself directly at maritime conference and events organised in mainland Europe for the oil and gas exploration industries.

“We’ve already had some very strong enquiries on foot of this from other EU countries,” he said.

All key German technical and administrative staff will be trained at the college as survival instructors initially.

Following this a broad range of additional training, consultancy and supports will be provided to ensure they have the skills to run their own training centre.