Falmouth company’s innovative floating dock secures investment

Falmouth-based Tugdock, which has invented the world’s first road transportable modular floating dry dock, has secured investment.

The Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Investment Fund (CIOSIF) investment is being matched by Sarens, the global leader in crane rental services, heavy lifting and engineered transport.

Sarens will work in partnership with Tugdock to offer an innovative solution to the fast-growing floating offshore wind industry.

The funding will be used for a range of growth activities by Tugdock, including establishing a manufacturing facility in Cornwall, hiring new staff and undertaking sales and marketing activity.

Falmouth-based Tugdock’s solution enables the building of floating offshore wind turbine substructures. Floating offshore wind farms are located in deeper waters much further offshore than fixed wind turbines. This gives them access to higher winds which generate more power. They are set to play a key role in delivering a cost-effective net-zero energy transition.

Figures indicate that well over 20 gigawatts of floating offshore wind power is on track to be commissioned globally by the end of 2030, which will require the construction of more than 2,600 turbines.

However, very few of the world’s ports have sufficient water depth and assembly quay space to build the huge turbine floaters required. Tugdock’s patented marine buoyancy bag technology solves this issue. It allows floating dry docks to be delivered by road in modular form and assembled at the port to dimensions far wider than most of the world’s existing dry docks.

Tugdock founder and CEO, Shane Carr, said: “With floating offshore wind expanding rapidly internationally, we are well-positioned to support the sector. The funding from CIOSIF and Sarens will help enable us to scale up to make the most of this exciting global opportunity.”

Ralph Singleton, The FSE Group’s head of funds for Cornwall, commented: “With their extensive experience and industry contacts, the Tugdock team is ideally placed to optimise its first-mover advantage and deliver its innovative solutions to the new but growing international floating offshore wind market. With a strong, industry-based co-investor secured in Sarens, Tugdock expects to grow to a circa £10 million business over the next three years and we are delighted to be supporting them on this journey.”

John Acornley, LEP non-executive director and chair of the CIOSIF advisory board, said: “The floating offshore wind sector has huge potential for Cornwall with 4GW of capacity being targeted for the Celtic Sea by 2035 and 20GW more anticipated by 2045. Tugdock’s mobile infrastructure could play a major role in bringing offshore wind turbine assembly to the region’s ports and creates a huge export opportunity for this Cornish business.”