Latest Water Witch workboat on sea trials
Following a 6 month build in Liverpool UK, the latest Water Witch waterway cleanup vessel has just been launched and put on her pre-delivery trials before shipping.
She is known as ‘Yard 75’ being the 75th vessels of this design to be built by the Company. She was put through her paces in Liverpool Docks within the historic Stanley Basin adjacent to the Water Witch boat yard.
After extensive testing by the Water Witch crew she was loaded on a 40ft flat rack for shipment from the UK to Cebu, Philippines. From the deep sea Port of Cebu she will be transported to Mindanao where she will keep the the intake channel and spillway areas of the Hydro Electric Power Plant clear of debris, trash and Water Hyacinth (a type of aquatic weed). Using her powerful loader and large basket attachment, she will be able to lift a tonne of material out of the water at a time, ensuring that the National Power Corporation can keep generating electricity.
Fifty years of expertise
Founded in 1966 as a family business, Water Witch have established themselves as one of the world’s leading builders of waterway maintenance and cleanup boats..
Fifty years on, Water Witch remain a family-run business committed to solving the ongoing challenge of waterway pollution. Their range has grown to include a wealth of road-transportable pollution-control workboats and efficient waste transfer and storage barges – with more than 200 vessels in operation world-wide.
In a statement, Water Witch director Jackie Caddick said:
“This is the second Water Witch that we have built for the National Power Corporation in Mindanao. We have continued to develop the design to meet the operational requirements of the client and this particular vessel has a larger lift capacity and a more powerful, 6 cylinder Perkins M190 turbo charged engine. There is a growing global need to clean waterways of vegetation, trash and debris – the amount of which has increased hugely over the last 20 years due to the amount of plastics and other non-degradable consumer products now in use.”
