On the 19th of June 2009 while coxwain of the Peterhead pilot vessel, George West was faced with man overboard when the tug vessel Ijsselstroom capsized just off the port. After seeing the difficulty of recovering three men, he set about trying to come up with a new reliable fast means of securing a person in the sea. In trying to simplify the task of man overboard recovery from high freeboard vessels in bad weather sea conditions, he invented the QUIKSLING.
Sea trials with early prototypes were a complete success.
Men were being rapidly recovered from the sea, easily.
Following satisfactory load tests, his innovative equipment was first installed by the local fishing vessels. It is now in widespread use across the fishing fleets of Europe as their first choice for recovering crew members from the sea.
Self funded, this Scottish company produces its own high quality patented life-saving product with sub-manufacture of key parts outsourced to ISO 9001 U.K. manufacturers.
Lloyd's Register Type Approval was granted for the MK2 model after extensive laboratory and stringent practical testing. This resulted in the QUIKSLING being accepted for SOLAS regulations as part of its full Lloyd's certification.
Here are two partly-finished frames, awaiting attachment of the triple-sling technology system and function testing.
QUIKSLING LIMITED is proud to manufacture and supply this wonderful means of saving a person from rough sea.
To ensure very best quality, each QUIKSLING unit is hand made with the utmost care and attention to detail before undergoing final checks. At the end of the assembly line is a proven lifesaver that can be utterly reliable in a storm.
It recovered one crewman from 10m astern of his vessel.
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