March turned out to be quite an unusual month for South Shields based Solar Solve Marine. The well-known manufacturer of Type Approved, SOLASOLV anti-glare roller sunscreens and ROLASOLV marine quality roller blinds, does quite a lot of trade with Scandinavian based businesses. The region is not a prolific builder of ships compared with other parts of the world and consequently, orders aren’t usually flowing in on a daily basis.
That is why the team at Solar Solve were both surprised and also very pleased, when they saw that 3 companies based in Norway, were included in their Top Four Customer List for March 2022.
Altogether, the orders placed were for SOLASOLV roller sunscreens and ROLASOLV roller blinds, that were to be installed at 120 windows across 4 vessels.
John Lightfoot, MBE, chairman of Solar Solve commented, “The one thing we have learned over many years, is that Norway has a superb reputation for building top class vessels of quality and reliability. Twenty-seven years ago, in my younger days, we packed the van with sunscreens and roller blinds and boarded the ferry from the Tyne to Stavanger. On arrival, we drove to the Mjellem & Karlsen shipyard, boarded the KARAN 8, a very sophisticated research vessel and set about installing 144 screens and blinds, at just about all the windows, doubling up with a sunscreen and rollerblind at many of them.”
“I cannot remember too much but I do remember the owner’s standby superintendent being very impressed with what he was taking over on behalf of the Saudi owners. The KARAN 8 is still in active service with the original owners. Verification of the quality of the original build.”
“It is extremely gratifying for me personally, to know that Solar Solve continues to be recognised as an accredited supplier, who can be relied on to provide products of the highest standard, that are Type Approved by the Norwegian organisation DNV, the world’s leading classification society.”
