The multicat “THE THREE” has been sold to CPBS Marine Services in the United Kingdom as of today, Tuesday 16 February 2010. The boat will be deployed in England under its new name “Gundog’. The “Buffel’ as “THE THREE” used to be called, was the first boat in the SwetsODV company colours and has now been sold.

We decided to sell “THE THREE” as part of our innovation plan for a completely new fleet. “THE THREE”, already built in 1931, was the oldest boat in our fleet, which therefore needed more maintenance and repair. The new owner will continue to use “THE THREE” for a number of years for work in the London Port.

At this moment we orient ourselves on the purchase of a new multicat.

Zwijndrecht/Almelo, 25 October 2009 – SwetsODV, leading in the flexible labour market for nautical staff, has renamed its fleet as of today and announces the new names of its recently acquired fleet consisting of 11 work boats and patrol vessels. SwetsODV recently took over Van Laar Scheepvaart and its fleet from Acta Marine Holding. The fleet will immediately be changed into the SwetsODV company style. The pilot vessels will keep their RWS colours, but will sail under the SwetsODV flag.

The multiple fleet of well-equipped work boats with a shallow draught consists of 9 communication vessels, 1 truckable work boat and 1 multicat.

The new names have their origin in the popular names of ships. The Jacoba 12 was widely known as The Twelve and they have chosen to give all vessels of the fleet a ship name with a number in it.

The vessels will be renamed into:
The One (former Eagle) The Seven (former Jacoba 7)
The Two (former Albatros) The Eight (former Swift)
The Three (former Buffel) The Nine (former Tarzan)
The Four (former Jacoba 4) The Twelve (former Jacoba 12)
The Five (former Jacoba 5) The Thirteen (former Sara Maatje XIII)
The Six (former Jacoba 6

Maurice Swets, owner/director, will symbolically rename the fleet and propose a toast on Tuesday the 3rd of November at 16.00 hours, at the opening day of Europort 2009, at the SwetsODV stand (stand number 6.800, Hall 6).

SwetsODV Nautisch Beheer manages the fleet and its crew, which is mainly deployed for projects in the hydraulic infrastructure and ship guidance sectors, such as assistance with dredging and hydraulic projects, assistance and supply services for inland waters, survey work, putting in sinkers, patrol work, inspection and examination work, traffic control and transport of staff and crews.

Zwijndrecht, 18 September 2009 – SwetsODV, leading in the flexible labour market for nautical staff, took over Van Laar Scheepvaart on Friday 18 September last, from Acta Marine Holding. Van Laar Scheepvaart, the full workforce consisting of the management team (Eric Fijen and Olof van Laar) and the sailing staff, as well as all vessels of Van Laar Scheepvaart will be completely taken over by SwetsODV. After the previous takeover of Oceanwide Inland Shipping earlier this summer, SwetsODV expanded its existing portfolio of services even further and with this acquisition it even further professionalises its activities.

SwetsODV has years of experience in supplying staff for inland navigation, staff for ship guidance/nautical management, the operation of bridges and locks and the crewing of ferries. Van Laar Scheepvaart is specialised in the exploitation of vessels which are especially equipped for activities on Dutch inland waters, mainly for infrastructure projects such as the construction, maintenance and inspection of bridges, locks and tunnels, dredging work, bank work, and sand and gravel extraction, and ship guidance.

“The acquisition of Van Laar Scheepvaart offers an excellent addition to our existing portfolio of services. By adding this new activity, a multidisciplinary, strong nautical organisation will be created which can respond decisively and expertly to the increasing demand”, according to Maurice Swets, director/owner of SwetsODV. “We are now able to offer our customers a broad range of interesting competences and services in the inland navigation sector with this additional expertise from our new acquisition.

“The service that Van Laar Scheepvaart offers to its customers is extremely complementary to the current activities which SwetsODV offers its customers in the (semi) government sector”, adds Jan de Vries, director/owner of SwetsODV. “We see a trend with our customers to outsource nautical management and supervision more and more. This is particularly happening at governments, such as municipalities, district water boards and provinces, where traffic control and nautical management are important activities. SwetsODV can fully respond to this new activity and serve these customers in particular with an even more complete offer of both vessels and staff”, according to De Vries.

Govert-Jan van Oord, Director of Acta Marine Holding says: “By selling the inland navigation activities, which we performed under the Van Laar flag, Acta Marine can fully focus on its core activity”; owning and exploiting smaller work boats for coastal waters, further specialised in very shallow water. Through this we can also further simplify our business operations. Our previous decision to fully integrate the subsidiaries Acta Marine Van Stee and Acta Marine Waterweg also fully fits this framework. The sales will be fully used for the further enforcement and growth of our core activity”.