Lucrative davit refurbishments for retrofitting on offshore vessels fuelled a further boost in revenue last year for the Dutch subsidiary of leading Norwegian supplier Vestdavit, with burgeoning aftersales work accounting for the lion’s share of turnover.
The Vestdavit BV unit saw revenue surge by 65% in 2024 - surpassing a 50% rise the previous year - as growing activity in the offshore wind and seismic segments has resulted in operators seeking to procure reconditioned workboat davits that can be installed on existing vessels to meet demand, thereby avoiding the need to wait for new equipment.
Exponential revenue growth
“There is a lot of refurbishment activity going on, which entails overhauling, installation, testing and recommissioning of existing davits, and this is becoming an increasingly important part of our business,” he says.
Vestdavit can supply heavy-duty single and dual-point davits able to handle large workboats of 12-30 tonnes for safe and efficient launch and recovery in variable sea states, maximizing the operational window while meeting stringent requirements - such as Norsok - for work in the offshore sector.
The Dutch subsidiary has seen exponential growth in revenue since being launched in 2022, benefiting from its strategic location in the Netherlands with close proximity to European trade lanes and the regional shipbuilding industry in the Benelux countries, Germany, France, Denmark, Spain and Portugal.
“This makes us more accessible for our customers, both to perform service and inspection work on existing vessels as well as commissioning of davits on newbuilds. This also means we can provide quicker and more cost-effective service that is a high priority for us,” Bøyum explains.
Strong after-sales performance
Service and inspection, including supply of spare parts as well as annual and five-yearly inspections, accounted for around 85% of the subsidiary’s revenue last year, with davit refurbishments making up the remainder.
Bøyum notes that the number of davit inspections rose 10% year-on-year for the Vestdavit group in 2024, commensurate with soaring sales that reached a new record last year for the third year running.
Inevitably, this has a beneficial knock-on effect for the Netherlands office in terms of higher aftersales activity and, consequently, Vestdavit BV is looking to increase its service engineering capacity this year to cope with demand.
“We have seen strong growth in service and inspection work, and investing in an additional service engineer will enable us to extend our regional coverage and capture more aftermarket business,” Bøyum says.
Strategic regional location
He believes the subsidiary’s strategic location has enabled it to build partnerships with regional shipyards and suppliers, as well as strengthen relationships with its customer base comprising government clients for Vestdavit’s core naval business together with offshore wind and other commercial clients.
Bøyum is optimistic about the market going forward based on turnover so far this year and, in particular, expects further growth in the CSOV and governmental davit markets.
“We attribute our success to hard work, astute commercial thinking and high standards of customer service,” he concludes.
