Marine Shrink Wrap – Transport protection for Princess Yachts

Princess Yachts International approached Tufcoat. The luxury yacht manufacturer needed to ensure that their products remained immaculate during long road journeys to customers throughout Europe to prevent time-consuming and costly cleaning & repairs.

Tufcoat provides two alternative solutions for Princess Yachts. Where an end customer does not require that the shrink wrap cover be re-usable then Tufcoat provides a standard marine shrink wrap encapsulation of the yacht’s superstructure and hull using a 190 micron, white, shrink wrap film. For a typical 15m (50′) long vessel, Tufcoat use a 12m (40′) wide shrink wrap film which is trimmed and welded in situ before being heat shrunk ‘drum tight’ to provide a tight-fitting cover that will not flap and self-destruct even at motorway wind speeds. Once the yacht arrives at its destination, the shrink-wrap cover is removed and recycled.

An alternative solution is provided where an end customer would like to re-use the shrink wrap cover. In this instance, Tufcoat pre-fabricates a ready-to-fit cover (including zipped access doors and air vents if required) which is simply placed over the vessel and heat-shrunk drum tight. This type of cover utilises patented ‘Transhield’ shrinkable material which combines a regular shrink wrap layer on the outside with a unique non-abrasive layer fabric on the inside to provide surface protection to grade A standards. The customer is able to remove the cover for inspection of the boat upon arrival and then re-apply the cover for ongoing protection.

Whichever solution is employed, shrink-wrapping boats ensures that customer expectations are exceeded and costly visits by the manufacturer to undertake repairs and cleaning are eliminated.