Emergency Seawater Circulation Pump Replacement for Subsea Support Vessel

Customer: Ship Repair Company

Application: Seawater circulating pump

Equipment Supplied: Close coupled side channel pump

Customer Location: UK

Equipment supplied

2 x Azcue MO Close Coupled Side Channel Pump 

• Model: MO 19/20
• Material: Bronze
• Fluid: Hot sea water
• Flow: 1.8M³H
• Discharge pressure: 25M Head
• Pump body: Bronze
• Connections: 1 ¼”

Enquiry

On a Friday just before closing, Castle Pumps received an enquiry from a large and well known ship repair company whose customer, a subsea support vessel, had contacted them with a really urgent requirement for a sea water circulating pump. The pump the vessel was currently using had suddenly failed just a year after its installation, which we later found out was a cheap replica model.

Whilst we specify pumps for this sea water circulation all of the time, the challenge with this enquiry was that the subsea support vessel was docking in 3 days time and needed the replacement pump installed whilst it docked without any downtime being incurred. We had just three days to specify, dispatch and deliver a replacement sea water pump to help the customer avoid demurrage.

Key challenges:

• The urgent lead time of just 3 days
• And it was the weekend, when the business is usually closed!

Solution

Castle Pumps received the customer’s enquiry at 5pm on a Friday, however as customer service is key, we dealt with the enquiry out of hours to help support our customer in avoiding the vessel having to dock any longer than scheduled. 

At Castle Pumps we hold a number of our most popular pump models in stock, meaning we are able to supply a pump without waiting for manufacturer lead times, something which often incurs a few weeks of vessel downtime. Within twenty minutes of receiving this enquiry, we were able to see which of our ‘from stock’ models matched their requirements and three centrifugal pump options were presented to the customer. The ship repair company went away to discuss the options with the vessel and we awaited further instructions.

On Saturday, a day the business is usually closed, we received further information regarding specifications from the customer and as a result we offered an Azcue MO side channel pump  from our ‘from stock’ range within the hour. A few hours later we received the go ahead and the pump was packed in our warehouse equipped with spare seal, ready to be dispatched on a same day delivery service on Monday morning. The sea water circulating pump was collected at 6am on Monday morning and delivered the same day to the customer’s customer.

This is a prime example of how buying cheap replica models can cost much more in the long run due to repeat purchases of the same product time and time again. Investing in quality manufacturer like Azcue pumps is much more cost effective in the long run.

Enquiry Received: 17:06 on Friday 13^th October
Order Placed: Monday 16^th October
Order Dispatched: Monday 16^th October
Order Received: Monday 16^th October