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April 2012www.marinelink.com 41This influences the financing aspect of ship owning, favoring the Damen brand. Thanks to the number of Dutch clientsworking overseas, especially in the hy- draulic engineering and dredger markets, a large number of their ships operate far from the Netherlands. Servicing theseships in the far flung corners of the world forms a vital part of looking after the cus-tomer to ensure continuing satisfactory operation of the ship long after its deliv- ery. Damen therefore have an international network of distributors, partners, branches and shipyards throughout the world able to maintain their vessels. A further backup of essential spare parts isheld at the Dutch headquarters in Gor- inchem and is able to be sent at short no-tice to the required destination.Another part of the Damen philosophy is looking after the customer for the lifeof the vessel. It is not just a case of build- ing and selling ships.Despite the continued expansion of sales in their traditional areas of tugs andworkboats, continuous additions of new vessels types are added to the product range and where necessary acquiringother shipyards to fulfill this capacity. Over the years the program expanded to include cargo vessels, dredgers, ferries, high speed craft, special structures andoffshore vessels. The luxury (mega) yacht market was added in 1991 after the buy out of the Dutch Amels Yard. Government and naval vessels were added in 1998 following the acquisition of the naval shipbuilders Royal Schelde: this included Schelde Gears giving the Damen Group a company with over 90 years of expertise in the manufacture and repair of simple and complex naval and merchant ship transmissions.Research and development has always played an important part of Damens Phi- losophy, looking to improve existing de- signs and harness emerging technologies to build better vessels able to work more efficiently and with better handling and seakeeping characteristics. Environmen- tal aspects are studied and improvements to reduce its impact are constantly inves- tigated and applied. Damen participates in several programs carried out in the Netherlands with re-spected research institutes such as DelftUniversity of Technology, MARIN (Mar- itime Research Institute of the Nether- lands and Netherlands Organization of Applied Scientific Research (TNO) and others.The performance of high speed vessels although accepted under the ideal trialconditions of calm seas and gentlebreezes, is frequently degraded in the real life sea going conditions of strong winds and a running sea. As wave height in- creases speed must be reduced to prevent damage to ship or crew. Damen, together with Delft Univer- sity decided to investigate this and de- velop new designs for high speed craft for operability at sea in other words for real life situations instead of just perfect trial conditions. Fundamental is the realization and ac-ceptance that comfort of all on board al-lows a crew to perform better no matter whatever the job, be it maintenance of a windfarm or operation of a warship. Comfort in this sense does not mean lux-urious surroundings but low bodily stresses that cause seasickness and ex- haustion.In the 1990's The Enlarged Ship Con- cept?(ESC) was introduced in the patrol ship designs of the Stan Patrol 4207 and 4708 vessels. The ESC extends the length of the ship without changing the beamand importantly, not loading up the addi- tional space with heavy objects so the displacement is not greatly increased.The lengthened hull offers more suitable positioning of vital areas such as thewheelhouse and crew accommodation areas. Increasing the length without changingthe functionality creates more space en-abling greater hydro-mechanical opti- mization of the hull design. A very sharp slender bow further reduces vertical acel- erations with large waves. LuxuryThe 171 ft (52 m) Bel Abri megayacht, built 2010 by Amels Shipyard, part of the Damen Group. (Credit: Damen Shipyards Group)