How Aeromarine lit and marked Jaypee Cement’s Kharo Creek jetty channel for night navigation on an order with almost no lead time, and no positioning vessel to be had — by putting a local fishing trawler to work instead.
CLIENT
Jaypee Cement Corporation Limited
SCOPE
Captive jetty, Kharo Creek, Gujarat
WORK
7 buoys — 5 × SLB 1500 + 2 × SLB 700, with solar lanterns & moorings
DELIVERED
Supply, deployment, installation & commissioning
THE CHALLENGE
Jaypee Cement’s captive jetty at Kharo Creek moves cement by sea, and needed its approach channel marked and lit so that MBCs could navigate it safely after dark as well as by day. The order called for 7 buoys — 5 SLB 1500 buoys on 24mm chain moorings with 2,000kg sinkers, and 2 SLB 700 buoys on 16mm chain with 500kg sinkers, each fitted with a solar-powered marine lantern — supplied, positioned and commissioned within days of the order being placed. No dedicated buoy-laying vessel was available to the yard on that timeline.
WHAT AEROMARINE DID
- Supplied all 7 buoys to spec: 5 × SLB 1500 with SL 70-12 solar marine lanterns, 24mm chain and 2,000kg sinkers (red and green), and 2 × SLB 700 with SL 70-12 lanterns, 16mm galvanised chain and 500kg sinkers (yellow).
- With no positioning barge available in time, chartered a local fishing trawler and rigged it to carry, lower and moor the buoys and their sinkers, buoy by buoy, along the channel.
- Worked the trawler’s own deck gear to swing each buoy and sinker out and lower it to the bed, with Aeromarine’s team directing positioning from the deck in safety gear.
- Installed and commissioned the full set of 7 buoys against the client’s channel marking plan, inside the delivery window the order called for.
THE OUTCOME
All 7 buoys were supplied, positioned and commissioned to mark and light Jaypee Cement’s Kharo Creek channel, deployed from a chartered fishing trawler in place of a dedicated buoy-laying vessel — inside a delivery window that left no room for waiting on the right equipment.
WHY IT MATTERS
Not every job arrives with the right vessel already on hand. When the schedule couldn’t wait for one, Aeromarine’s team put a fishing trawler to work laying buoys instead of letting the equipment gap set the timeline — and it held up: every buoy on station, on schedule. That kind of on-site improvisation is what turns a supply order into a client who calls Aeromarine first the next time, and the time after that
Supplied to spec: SLB 1500 & SLB 700 buoys with SL 70-12 solar marine lanterns · 24mm and 16mm chain moorings with 2,000kg and 500kg sinkers · full installation and commissioning on site.
The Trawler at Work
Buoys rigged, lowered and moored off the working deck of a chartered fishing trawler, buoy by buoy.
Lowering a buoy over the side
Making the chain fast on deck
Buoys made fast alongside, crew aboard
Underway between buoy stations at first light
Buoys on Station, Channel Ready
The last buoys aboard and moored, and the Kharo Creek channel marked from bank to bank.
Buoys under tow, ready to be set
