A former health and safety manager in the Scotland’s oil and gas industry has designed an innovative garment aimed at saving the lives of offshore workers in the event of an accident at sea.
Simon Lamont, from Dundee, first came up with the idea for the Centurion 3 – which is specially engineered to produce immediate heat when submerged in extreme cold water – after the 2009 fatal Super Puma crash in the North Sea.
He has now set up Iron Ocean and has secured over £100,000 in research and development funding with an aim to launch the product commercially next year.
Working with Heriot-Watt University’s School of Textiles and Design to create a prototype, Lamont has also competed in various business events including Pitch at the Palace with HRH the Duke of York.
He said: “That helicopter crash left so many of us stunned and when, I discovered that the garments worn were insufficient when dealing with cold shock, I set to work designing and developing a product to remedy this.
“In my previous job I managed safety protocols and lead incident and accident investigations and worked with some fantastic people but I’m really enjoying being in full creative control of everything we do at Iron Ocean. More importantly however, our design can save lives and there is nothing I value more than that.”
“Now we’re are on target to have a fully offshore certified prototype ready for commercialisation by 1Q2018.
“Recently we gained significant funding and support after the Oil & Gas Innovation Centre (OGIC) carried out a full product validation which has been a massive help. We hope to bring in three new members of the team later this year and identify further potential investors.”
The Centurion 3 is the first in a range of products Iron Ocean plan to develop for the oil and gas, maritime and clean energy industries.
It is designed to be worn under offshore survival suits and is also slash resistant. It improves heat retention as well as generating heat and resisting fire, and a coating means the wearer should remain warm for at least one hour.
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