South Island Shipping Services owned vessel MV Liahona II is currently docked at the Fiji Ship and Heavy Industries Limited’s (FSHIL) slipway in Suva undergoing major maintenance works.

MV Liahona II was up-hauled on March 2, 2019 by its owners after seeing the need to upgrade the ves­sel’s under water steel hull and en­gine works.

FSHIL work supervisor Samuela Vasukira said works on the ves­sel has commenced with steel and engineering works to fine tune the vessel’s ability to sail the Fiji wa­ters.

“There are a number of works that we plan to do with the vessel as per request of the owners,” Mr Vasukira said.

“There is no certain time frame that we need to adhere to. We work according to customers’ requests and requirements,” he said.

“Steel works on the vessel include cropping out and inserting steel plates on damaged below water line areas, cropping out of existing doubling plates, and welding of in­serted plates as per surveyor’s ad­vice and gouging and re-weld of all worn out welding seams at below water line areas.”

He said there were a number of engineering works as well that they plan to carry out on the ves­sel.

“Engineering works on the vessel will see the removal, service and re-fit of port and starboard rud­der, propeller and tail shaft, crop­ping out of the cracked ‘Y’ bracket, re-alignment of starboard side ‘Y’ bracket and welding of 20mm steel plates as stiffeners and support to the Y bracket.

“Painting works on the vessel will commence once all steel and en­gine works are completed,” he said.

Mr Vasukira said: “As per our customers’ feedback, customer service, technical skill set, qual­ity management and our report­ing system we have delivered the services that are required of us by our customers and we continue to do so.

“All works performed at FSHIL is in compliance to International Association of Classification Socie­ties (IACS).”