[caption id="attachment_51126" align="alignnone" width="960"] The 113 metre “Le Grand Bleu†– one of the largest superyacht visitors to Guernsey of 2016[/caption]
As the festive period and the end of 2016 approaches we have afforded ourselves some time to look back at the year’s highlights for Oceanskies and Oceanskies Crew.
Before year end Oceanskies is on track to register our 350th vessel since our launch and 2016 has seen us register yachts of all sizes from small RIBs to the largest superyachts.
Our yacht registration expertise continues to be valued and in February we were invited to attend the YARE (Yachting Aftersales & Refit Experience) event held in Tuscany, Italy. This excellent event fitted in well with our ethos of providing support to the marine industry to help and assist with any client queries.
Tonnage surveys, either as a stand alone service or as part of our yacht registration service, have kept Oceanskies busy with travel this year with visits to Sweden, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Montenegro, Malta, Spain, Greece and the UK.
In March we launched a new online portal at www.TonnageSurvey.com through which yacht owners can quickly and cost effectively organise tonnage surveys for the registration of their vessels under Part I of the British Register of Ships and other title registers.
Our ‘Malta yacht leasing season’ started early in March with the arrival of a brand new Sunseeker 86 Yacht being the first of nearly thirty yachts personally welcomed by Oceanskies to Malta during the year.
Another success has been the growth of our dedicated concierge service designed to encourage and welcome superyacht visitors to the Channel Islands. Two very notable visitor amongst over thirty visiting superyachts handled in the Channel Islands this season were the 100 metre plus superyachts “Le Grand Bleu†and another very high profile vessel that visited both Guernsey and Jersey.
From an aviation perspective Oceanskies has also been busy with a number of registrations, importations and offshore closings being performed and in 2017 we are looking forward to the formal launching of a new dedicated aviation subsidiary.
Oceanskies Crew, our dedicated payroll outsourcing agency, has continued to grow with a number of 100 metre plus vessels being some very noteworthy additions to our fleet.
Shows continue to play an important part of our business development activities and a busy show season has seen us attending boat shows in London, Dusseldorf, Palma, Jersey, Cannes, Monaco and Antigua as well as attending aircraft shows in Geneva, Germany, London and the Channel Islands.
For 2017 we hope to improve on all these records and continue our growth.
To provide capacity to develop and grow Oceanskies next year we are pleased to announce the appointment of two new team members in our Guernsey office. Jacob Hall is working with Luc on the crew administration side of the business and Maureen Mallet has joined us to handle finance and accounts. At the time of writing this brings us to a team of ten.
Instead of sending Christmas cards we are making a donation to the Channel Islands Air Search appeal raising funds for the purchase and operation of a new Guernsey based aircraft. The Channel Islands Air Search is a voluntary service providing a rapid response airborne search and rescue service in Channel Island waters.
We look forward to an active and busy 2017 for the entire marine and aviation industries and wish you a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and rewarding New Year.