Liferaft Systems Australia (LSA) has secured a contract worth approximately $7 million Australian Dollars to supply Marine Evacuation Systems to the UK Ministry of Defence for use on two new British aircraft carriers.
LSA Managing Director, Michael Grainger, said it was the biggest single contract since the company was founded over 16 years ago.
"LSA has been working on finalising this contract for about 18 months after we were initially approached by Aircraft Carrier Alliance who had noticed the design and quality of our product" he said.
Under the contract, LSA will be providing 12 x 20 metre long inflatable evacuation slides (deployed from approximately 12 metres above sea level) and 60 x 100 person inflatable liferafts.
The life saving equipment, designed and manufactured in Hobart, Australia will be provided to Aircraft Carrier Alliance prior to the vessels being launched.
Mr. Grainger added that while LSA had previously provided Marine Evacuation Systems to the French, Royal Netherlands, Royal New Zealand and US navies, this was the first contract the company had received to supply their systems for installation on aircraft carriers.
The two new aircraft carriers, the HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales are similar in size and weight to the recently retired passenger liner QE2, with each having a flight deck area of nearly 13,000 square metres and hangar space of 29,000 square metres. The aircraft carriers will be 280 metres long and 70 metres wide with capacity to carry 40 aircraft and nearly 1500 crew.
LSA European Manager, Peter Rea, said he was obviously delighted to secure such a major contract.
"Our product, which can be deployed to evacuate significant numbers of crew or injured persons in just a few minutes has revolutionised marine evacuation procedures around the world and has become the MES of choice for navies throughout the world" he said.
Early next year LSA will supply 6 x 20m MES to the UK Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel, RFA Argus. In addition to this vessel LSA will also supply MES to the 4 new Holland Class Offshore Patrol Vessels being built for the Royal Netherlands Navy by Damen Schelde Naval Shipbuilding Group.
Managing Director of Liferaft Systems Australia Mr Mike Grainger said LSA had a "...very full order book..." for the next two years. "Given our existing work load, our lead times for delivery from our production facility in Tasmania is approximately 12 months. This is obviously a good position to be in, given the current economic problems being experienced around the world".
