MultiPlus Solutions reinforces their position as a leading supplier of ERP solutions for the shipyard industry by signing a new agreement with the shipyard Fiskerstrand Verft in Ålesund, Norway. - The agreement also represents a very valuable client reference, thus entailing a profit beyond the strictly financial aspect, says Managing Director of MultiPlus Solutions Mr Per Olav Helgeland. Fiskerstrand Verft, located right outside Alesund, offers services within new constructions, docking, repairs, maintenance and reconstructions. The shipyard, established in 1909, has more than 100 employees, and including hired laborers and sub-suppliers between 250 to 300 people work at the shipyard.

Two key members of the Chemring Marine team, who handle leading marine distress signal brands Pains Wessex and Comet, have recently taken on new responsibilities.

Justine Heeley

After nearly ten years with the company, Justine Heeley has been promoted to International Sales Manager. Justine also takes on extra territory and is responsible for Southern Europe, Africa, and now additionally the Far East.

In her new role as International Sales Manager, Justine takes on overall sales responsibility including managing order intake and budgets across the world as well as being responsible for distributor support, public relations and marketing.

She said: "I firmly believe that business is about people and above all creating excellent working relationships with customers. I'm tremendously pleased to receive this promotion from Chemring Marine."

Holger Mugge

Holger Mugge, Sales Manager, is taking on the Middle East and Northern Europe in addition to his existing territories. Holger, who is based in Bremerhaven, Germany, says: "Ship building is on the increase and that means lots of new business for Comet."

Italian Pains Wessex distributor Jonassohn has supplied all the pyrotechnics for the latest luxury Cunard cruise ship, Queen Victoria. Jonassohn SRL was founded in 1949 by a Norwegian master mariner and started commercial activities in 1967, specialising in the safety of life at sea sector. Based in Genova, the company opened its inflatable liferaft service station in 1976 and was the first company to introduce the Marine Evacuation System. The first MES were fitted to the Italian Navy ships San Giorgio and San Marco in 1987. The Queen Victoria, which weighs in at 90,000 tonnes, was officially named by HRH Duchess of Cornwall, accompanied by HRH the Prince of Wales, in the UK port of Southampton in December 2007.

T Mariotti Shipyard of Genoa, Italy has ordered Thordon seawater-lubricated COMPAC propeller shaft bearing systems for two new 50,000GT cruise ship being built for Seabourn Cruise Lines, the Carnival Corporation luxury brand, for 2009 and 2010 delivery. This will be the eleventh and twelfth Carnival-owned ship fitted with seawater lubricated COMPAC bearings since the first installation in 1998 on Grand Princess. The COMPAC tapered key bearing system is similar to those supplied by Thordon to the ten other Carnival-owned ships. "Water lubricated bearings are the present for many of our ships; I would like to see them for all of our future ships.

RomLotuS Group and MultiPlus Solutions AS recently entered into a partnership agreement regarding sales and implementation of the MultiPlus application in Romania and the rest of the Black Sea area. Through the partnership agreement, RomLotuS Group can now offer a fully integrated ERP solution for project related companies. At the same time, new market opportunities are surfacing for MultiPlus Solutions. The RomLotuS Group offers complete infrastructure solutions, in addition to delivering and developing individual document solutions. The company was established in 1990, is ISO 9001 certified, and currently employs a three-figured number of people.

The 'Karl Carstens' was delivered by Howaldtswerke Deutsche Werft AG to the Deutsche Bundesbahn for its future deployment as a rail-ferry in 1986. The diesel-electric ship is driven by a DC-propulsion engine with two propellers. Six MaK engines type 12M 282AK generate the electrical power output of 14,400 KW via generator operation with the starting pressure being provided by five 3-stage air-cooled WP80 L each with a capacity of 75 m±/h. The ship was sold to the Hays Ships Ltd. Shipping Company in the year 2000 under its new name of 'Karl' and shifted to the Danish harbour of Nakskov to be laid up. "Karl" was taken over by Helix, at Vicor Lenac in Croatia in 2006 and has been converted to a floating production platform having the project name "Commandor 5000.

Chris-Marine and IOP Marine both supply high-quality products very much to the same customers. By working together during 2008, both companies expect to provide even better support for the growing customer bases. Customers will in several different ways notice the common and the increased market and sales activities.

Chris-Marine AB - designs, manufactures and sells high precision maintenance machines for diesel engines being used on vessels and in power plants. Head quarter is located in Malmö, Sweden. Chris-Marine offers products and services worldwide through own subsidiaries and sales representatives. Chris-Marine is the market leader within its field of operation and the brand name is well-known.

IOP-Marine A/S - Obel-P Products has been developing products for MAN Diesel's 2-stroke engines since 1969 and has today a strategic co-operation with several of the major 2- and 4-stroke engine designers and manufacturers worldwide. IOP Marine A/S is market leader in the development of low and medium-speed fuel injector test equipment as well as hydraulic power packs for use with the same engines.

In order to make the assembly/disassembly easier for production as well as for maintenance purposes, Sauer & Sohn have developed a cooling unit in a cartridge design.

Compared to the design, in which the cooling pipes were fixed rigidly to the two ends of the housing, the new system has an exchangeable 'slide-in' unit where the pipes are soldered onto a retaining plate, a technique which is used by Sauer also in its submarine compressors.

This new design allows thermal expansion of the cooling pipes. CuNiFe10 is still the cooling pipe material which can be used for both fresh water and seawater cooling.

An additional advance is that we have been able to improve the cooling performance for the cooling compressed air. Thanks to this, other downstream components, for example, valves or compressed air processing elements are subject to an even lower thermal load. Sauer will incorporate this new construction model as standard from 2008.

Tanjung Kapal Services Sdn Bhd (TKS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Malaysian-based publicly listed company, Tanjung Offshore Berhad (TOB), has entered an agreement with Norwegian fleet management systems provider, BASS for the purchase of BASSnetTM integrated ship management systems. During the initial first half of 2008, BASS will install BASSnetTM Fleet Management Systems comprising crew management, payroll, planned maintenance and procurement systems onboard the company's fleet of offshore support vessels and offices on land. The deal, covering seven vessels, is expected to significantly improve fleet management efficiency to Tanjung's offshore operations.

BASS, a global leading software provider of fleet management systems, servicing the shipping and offshore industries, today announced its BASSnet™ software suite has been certified by five major classification societies. The societies, all of which are members of the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS) are: Lloyd's Register of Shipping (LR), Bureau Veritas (BV), Germanisher Lloyd (GL), Det Norske Veritas (DNV), and Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (ClassNK). In essence, the certifications provide shipping companies with the assurance that BASSnet™ - Fleet Management systems have been through rigorous independent testing and verification by the five different class societies.

The boom in the Chinese economy is something which everybody is talking about. Shipbuilding in particular is an area where the Chinese are becoming more and more dominant and would like to become market leaders. Almost all of the shipping companies that order new builds have already built or at least asked for an offer for a ship from one of the many Chinese shipyards. The quality of a ship is determined by the shipowners site supervisors but first and foremost by the agreed Maker's List. Each of the shipping companies are interested in agreeing upon as many manufacturers as possible with whom they have had good experience in the past, and whose products meet the high quality requirements for the type of ship.

The biggest daily financial newspaper in Sweden, Dagens Industri , has awarded Uson Marine AB as one of the fastest growing companies in Sweden in 2007.

The following criteria must be fulfilled in order to qualify as a Gazelle company:

• At least four annual reports must have been made public
• Turnover of more than 10 MSEK
• At least ten employees
• Turnover must have increased every year for the past three years.
• Under the same period at least double the turnover
• The collective operating results for the past four fiscal years must be positive
• Company has grown "organically" and not through acquisition or mergers
• The company must have sound finances

Uson Marine AB expands by establishing a new regional office in Harstad, Norway. By this expansion we will be able to closer serve the needs of our clients in the merchant and offshore sector. Contact and Region manager for Uson Marine Norway AS is Kjell Erik Reinstad who previously worked with the key account clients for Delitek AS.

Uson Marine AB has during the last year established regional offices in Gothenburg and Helsinki (Finland). Uson Marine AB has also established cooperation with Delitek AS in Norway to meet the existing and forthcoming demands in the marine environmental market.

The cooperation between Uson Marine AB and Delitek AS means that the companies will be able to serve the market with a total waste handling system in accordance with marine and offshore standard.

R Rouvari Oy has recently introduced services in Russian for its Russian and Russian-speaking customers. The new language services proved especially useful during the recent delivery of the HULLMOS hull stress monitoring system HULLMOS for four handysize product and chemical tankers during the beginning of 2007. The systems, delivered to Latvian Shipping Company, consisted of four long-based LBSG sensors, an accelerometer and necessary software. The system was delivered according to Lloyd's Register ShipRight(Hss-4) class notation and rules for Hull Surveillance Systems. One special feature of the hull stress monitoring project was the exceptionally large integration requirements of the spec.

The Agency Meeting 2007 for the industrial market segment took place at the Steigenberger Hotel in Kiel between 10th - 12th September. This segment represents Sauer's greatest challenge as well as being the market which has the greatest growth potential. More than 50 participants from over 30 nations found their way to Kiel - from Australia to Brazil, and Syria to Norway. We started off proceedings, on the day of arrival, with a welcome dinner to give new and old Sauer representatives the opportunity to get to know each other. The evening proved to be surprising in several ways - the representatives from Bangladesh were able to talk to their colleagues from Serbia and Kosovo in Serbo-Croatian.

Marine equipment factory MEBLOMOR S.A. in Czarnków was founded in 1952 and goods for the shipping industry have been produced since 1959. Our product range includes ship doors, hatches and ventilation louvers, and galley and cabin furniture. MARINE EQUIPMENT DESIGN AND MANUFACTURE The long cooperation with Polish and foreign shipyards develops our knowledge of the marine industry in design, technical requirements and quality as well as punctuality of deliveries. Thanks to our cooperation with designers, owners and classification societies our products meet their requirements and the rules of the SOLAS 1974 convention, MED 96/98/EC.

The Chrysopoulos family founded General Turbos Machinery and Spares (HELLAS), in 1975. The company is located in the traditional Greek region for ship repairs: the greater area of Piraeus port, in Keratsini and Perama. The company has operated successfully for the past 30 years in the field of servicing turbochargers, mainly on diesel, main and auxiliary engines aboard marine vessels and in power plants. TURBOCHARGER COMPONENTS General Turbos offers the sale of original, new and second-hand turbocharger components as well as conducting servicing, inspection, installation and repairs of every turbocharger type.

Southern Blasting Services specialise in the environmentally friendly coatings-removal methods of Ultra-High Pressure (UHP) water blasting and abrasive blasting. We also provide all types of paint / coatings application methods, including thermal spraying of coatings for zinc and aluminium. We have made a substantial investment in buying our own UHP machines, which are kept fully maintained by skilled workers who understand the equipment and the correct and safe methods of operating such equipment. This results in far greater cost-effectiveness than the traditional methods of hiring in machines with operators that may not be as familiar with the best and safest operating procedures.

The Zaliv Amerika is the latest medium-sized tanker to join the Primorsk Shipping Corp fleet. Owned by Boussol Shipping Limited, the ship will be initially operated by the Tesoro Far East Maritime Company to transport oil. The ship is under a three-year lease to Tesoro and was commissioned in January 2007. The keel was laid in August 2007. "The ship is the first of six new tankers in the new PRISCO aframax series." The ship is the first of six new tankers in the new PRISCO aframax series. Each of the six new vessels will be named after Far Eastern gulfs. The tanker was built at Hyundai shipyards in Uslan, South Korea, and was blessed on 14 December 2007 by Father Tikhon, an orthodox priest.

The Freedom of the Seas (ordered in September 2003) is the first of a trio of Freedom-class vessels commissioned by Royal Caribbean International. The ship had the accolade of being the world&squo;s largest ship when it was delivered in April 2006. Since that time two more Freedom-class vessels have been launched: the Liberty of the Seas in 2007 and Independence of the Seas. "The cost of the ship is estimated at $800m." The Freedom was constructed at Aker Finnyards&squo; Turku Shipyard and has its home port in Miami. The Freedom was floated out in August 2005 and christened at Bayonne, New Jersey in May 2006.

The MS Queen Victoria is a UK-registered ship operated by Cunard. The vessel does not hold the designation of RMS as with other Cunard ships, signifying that they carry Royal mail. The MS Queen Victoria carries the tradition of naming larger ships after British Queens following the RMS Queen Elizabeth II and both RMS Queen Marys. She is the second largest Cunard ship ever built next to the Queen Mary II. FLOATING OUT The £270m MS Queen Victoria is a 90,000t cruise ship constructed by Fincantieri Maritimo in Maghera near Venice (the first Cunarder to have been built in Italy). Floating out of the hull and superstructure took place from dry dock in January 2007.