Page 71: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (October 2017)

The Sealite story starts in 1982 when ing around mechanical ? tting, circuitry can pull along side, and instead of get- ogy means investing in design and man- it began manufacturing marine aids to and software.” ting off of the ship to access the buoy ufacturing facilities, and since the early navigation. “You might think of aids to navigation to check things like battery voltage and 2000s Sealite has steadily invested in it- “My father started the business liter- as a boring product, but in fact there is latern functionality and other diagnostics self, in Australia as well as the U.K. and ally from the garage,” said Chris Proctor, actually a lot of technology built in,” ... they can do it from a tablet from their U.S. The culmination will arrive next noting that accounting was his father’s said Chris. “We have just recently in- vessel. This is saving time and money year when Sealite opens its new 95,000 day job, but Jeff Procter was, and is, an troduced some products that use Blue- while also reducing risk.” sq. ft. purpose-built factory in Australia.

avid electrician, hobbyist and inventor. Tooth, meaning that a coast guard vessel Keeping up with advances in technol-

Sealite, in fact, was literally born on a local ? shing trip, when Jeff noticed that one of the ? rst aquaculture farm sites were using cheap roadside markers as 50 YEARS OF INNOVATION perimeter markers for the aquaculture farm.

He thought, “I can do better than that,”

World beating stopping, said Chris. So he made a product, took it down to the local farmer and asked him turning and locking systems to try it. “That’s how it all began: spot- ting a need and ful? lling it.” for the marine industry

From those humble beginnings in Mel- bourne, Australia, the company grew slowly, but eventually started to rapidly expand its product and service offering, and today its range of navigation aids has expanded to include; marine lan- terns, high-precision sector lights, lead- ing lights, bridge lighting, rotationally- molded buoy products, power-systems, and products to provide safe environ- ments for maritime customers world- wide.

The Tech Turn

In the early years Sealite continued to

SEE US AT: grow, albeit slowly as up until the late 1990s the business remained an after hours and weekend endeavor for Jeff

Hall F, Stand 3913 www.dellner-brakes.com

Hall 1A, Stand 1719

Procter, primarily serving aquaculture farms around Australia. ”It was in the late 1990s that LED technology be- came bright enough to make a naviga- tion marker out of it, and that’s when he moved from incadescent to LED,” said

Chris. “That was when the business re- ally started to take off.”

In Chris’ estimation, a key strength of the business is not only identifying a need, but simultaneously ? nding the STOCK (Purchase and Rental): s