Innovation – A Commotion in the Ocean


One of our regular clients here at Jamestown is Cimpina, a family-run specialist in engineering and coded welding. Cimpina has been serving the Marine, Offshore, Petrochemical and Utility sectors for more than 25 years with its Mechanical Services and Specialist Repair Divisions. Cimpina’s skilled workforce takes a methodical approach working with a variety of metals, plastics and GRP (glass reinforced plastic) composites which include:

  • CE approved metal and GRP access structures
  • Metal tanks
  • Metal and plastic pipework
  • Metal general engineering

Cimpina’s clients include several household names, including:

  • Stena Line – one of the largest ferry operators on the planet with services in Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Poland and the United Kingdom.
  • QED Naval Ltd – a high growth company developing concepts for the marine renewable energy industry (wave, tidal and offshore wind), prototyping marine structures from concept through to production.
  • Crane Energy Group – A manufacturer of highly engineered industrial products with customers in the aerospace, electronics, petrochemical, power generation and transportation industries.
  • Aker Solutions – a company providing energy companies with the services necessary to deliver projects from subsea to surface to concept to decommissioning.
  • Metallbau Fruh GmbH – a German company that specialises in building envelopes made from metal and glass with operations in all corners of the globe.
  • A2SEA – a Denmark-based company that specialises in transport, installation and servicing of off-shore wind farms.

Cimpina’s broad mission statement is to “Provide engineering excellence in our fabrications, certified repairs and on-site services within the United Kingdom, Ireland and adjacent offshore areas”.
Cimpina relies on Jamestown for it high definition plasma profile cutting services, in no small measure because they know that we can be relied upon to deliver great quality and competitive costing while ensuring reliability and adhering to their delivery times. Here at Jamestown, we are dedicated to making sure that our clients receive a service that enables them to offer a reliable and committed service to their own clients.

The most recent project that has resulted in Cimpina turning to Jamestown for a reliable service is none other than QED Naval Limited’s Subhub flagship project. On this project we supplied Plate Profiles, more specifically Plasma and Oxy Profiling. (link to product pages) QED Naval have teamed up with the Offler Marine Services Group (OMSG) to deliver a selection of installation and recovery methods and to decrease both risks and cost exposure of the Subhub Project.

Subhub is a foundation structure for wave and tidal turbines which commissions, tests, transports, installs and secures an array of wave and tidal turbines to the seabed using Subhub’s unique features and methods. QED Naval Limited have been awarded a Scottish Enterprise SMART R&D grant to support the ongoing development of the project which involves validating, building and testing a large-scale prototype of the Subhub.

The target market for the Subhub will be large commercial scale turbines (1MW turbines) which typically weigh 150 tons and feature controllable pitch rotors. The Subhub is ideally suited for shallow water installation in less than 50 metres of water where its hull faring works most efficiently to optimise the output from the tidal turbines.

Subhub is designed to reduce the cost of deployment of tidal turbines by installing a new array of tidal turbines in a single offshore operation using small, low cost support vessels. It also:

  • Commissions and tests all systems ashore
  • Transports a fully integrated array of turbines to an offshore site
  • Links three turbines using a single dry mate connector link
  • Installs the turbines ready for service within safe operational limits of one tidal cycle
  • Secures the turbines to the seabed during operation via a gravity-based system
  • Significantly increases the power output by accelerating the flow into the turbines
  • Reduces the velocity shear profile between the top and bottom of the rotor
  • Retrieves the turbines to the surface for maintenance or removal using a simple ballasting procedure.

Cimpina has a long history of sourcing from Jamestown and the company once again turned to us to deliver the high definition plasma profile cutting necessary for the work they undertook for QED Naval. Cimpina knows from experience that by availing themselves of the services provided by Jamestown that they were guaranteed a high quality, low cost service that is totally reliable and would be delivered within their deadlines.

Here at Jamestown we’re proud of the fact that our services are at the forefront of these revolutionary new methods of sourcing energy and doing our part in promoting and delivering a cleaner, greener future.