One of our earliest Marine projects, and with our Managing Director having served as a member of the RNLI in his local seaside village for over 32 years, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution commissioned CAI to design, manufacture and fit a set of marine instruments for their Trent Class Lifeboat Range. Manufactured in 2016 they are now fully functional in this fleet.
The Trent-class lifeboat, an all-weather lifeboat operated by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) from 30 stations around the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland to provide coverage up to 50 miles (80 km) out to sea was introduced to service in 1994. The vessel is named after the River Trent, the second longest river in England. It has a service life of approximately 25 years. In comparison with its earlier variants, the boat has numerous additional advantages which aid in the overall success of every launch.
The existing tachometers of the Trent were found to have poor calibration and the lighting was inadequate. We designed new tachometers to work off the existing senders with LED lighting. The tachometers are waterproof to IP67 and have been successful in their installation.
The new 100mm tachometers feature stainless steel bezels, black dial faces are LED backlit and illustrate the distinctive SMITHS Marine Logo. They measure Revolutions in the range of 0-3000 RPM. A similar Tachometer featuring chrome bezels was also designed.