News Time-lapse shows 11-month ferry build in just two minutes

Almost two years since it was set into service by the Duchess of Cornwall, the incredible build of RedJet 7 is now revealed through our time-lapse video.

With our long-standing relationship with Wight Shipyard, our bespoke camera systems were already in situ at the shipyard, allowing us to instantly begin capture of the RedJet 7 build process some 11 months before its launch.

Time-Lapse Systems has worked with Wight Shipyard for several years, documenting many key ship builds they have undertaken. To ensure the best capture of these varied projects, our experienced engineers identified optimum positions for the long-term installation of three camera systems. This was undertaken within a challenging installation in a very busy marine building environment, ensuring coverage of the production facility whilst not impeding on the work taking place.

It was one of these camera systems that provided capture of the build of the RedJet 7 catamaran from start to finish. Our remote monitoring capabilities were imperative, as the adjustable capturing rates and all camera system settings were micromanaged to ensure the best results for the build images. Due to our bespoke approach, we could increase the capture rate significantly for important build events, for example, documenting in detail the crane move of the top vessel section.

Once the ship build was completed across the 11-month period, we seamlessly edited all images captured into a two-minute video by our skilled in-house team. To document the full story of the build, including the catamaran’s emergence out of the facility onto the quay, and into the water, our experienced editing team incorporated rapid capture footage from our colleagues at Aerial Video Guys into the final cut.

The finished time-lapse video, released on the day the Duchess of Cornwall named the catamaran itself, has been used widely for promotional purposes by Wight Shipyard. This includes in a variety of media, from embeds in tweets and social media to an online newspaper website.

Red Jet 7 was built in Wight Shipyard, located in East Cowes on the Isle of Wight. At 41m, RedJet 7 is a sister vessel to RedJet 6, which was already in service for Red Funnel. With a capacity for 277 passengers and 4 crew, the greenest high-speed catamaran in the fleet adds significant additional capacity to the Southampton-West Cowes ferry route.

Wight Shipyard works on a variety of marine projects but specialises in innovative fast ferries. They are known in the marine sector for building lighter, more fuel-efficient ferries, thereby reducing carbon emissions and fuel costs. We are pleased to have captured other fast ferry builds for them including:

• MBNA Thames Clippers (London) – Jupiter and Mercury Clippers: two 35m high-speed commuter ferries on the River Thames.
• Twin City Liner (Vienna): Central Danube Region Marketing & Development GmbH’s 250-passenger 39m river catamaran. A low-wash round bilge catamaran used as a commuter ferry and cruise vessel on the Danube between Vienna and Bratislava.
• Four fast ferry vessels (Malta): two 20m and two 33m catamarans for tourism leader, Captain Morgan Holdings.

With our camera systems still in position, Time-Lapse Systems look forward to continuing our work with Wight Shipyard, capturing the future marine projects, ships and fast ferries that are built in their facility.