With the ongoing growth of our cargo surveying department, this office is proud to announce one of our most recent appointments to undertake further dangerous goods inspections on behalf of a major shipping line in the South’s premier container port.

Our dangerous goods surveyors request a random selection of containers from numerous shipping lines and inspect for damage, correct labelling and stuffing and assess the adequacy of containers for shipment. This incredibly varied line of work has seen our surveyors inspect dangerous goods ranging from aerosol cans to spontaneously combustible scrap metals!

2008 was another very busy and prosperous year for Geoff Waddington & Partners Ltd. Our most successful year to date saw the completion of a record number of over 500 instructions, with significant growth in new build & quality audits, general cargo surveys, small craft surveys and docking superintendency instructions.



Quality standards across all areas of the business have been maintained at an excellent level after obtaining ISO 9001 accreditation at the end of 2007. This has helped us to achieve our highest levels of customer satisfaction to date.

October saw the appointment of our fourth Surveyor, Richard Rapp who is an affiliate member of the YDSA, specialising in small craft surveying and the RCD. With this expansion it is a strong intention of this office to diversify our services further, by offering Post Construction Assessment services for vessels imported from outside of the EU and consultancy on the Recreational Craft Directive for home builders of vessel up to 24m in length.

Record number of yacht load surveys completed!

'Leopard III' arrives in Southampton.


Following a tremendous effort by the yachts crew and the shipping agents Peters and May Limited, Mike Slades new race yacht 'Leopard III' was finally discharged at Southampton Container Terminal on a rainy Sunday evening (27th May).

The yachts skipper Chris Sherlock was on hand and joined by Peters and May Loadmaster Mr Paul Miller to oversee the final stages of a long voyage which started in Sydney where the yacht was constructed, visiting Malaysia for transhipment and finally Southampton.


The wind, a rather fresh northerly force 6 hampered efforts as the huge hull was lifted from on top the aft container stacks of the Maersk Line 'A P Moller' on to a Williams Shipping Barge in preparation for the final leg to Saxon Wharf Marina in Southampton.



The vessels 47m carbon fibre mast was discharged earlier in May (Monday 14th) at Sheerness Docks.

Our surveyors were on site at each stage of both the mast and yacht discharge to observe the process and document the events for Peters and May.


GW & Partners have undertaken cargo condition surveys on several famous racing yachts including Ellen MacArthurs 'Skandia' and 'B&Q', Mike Goldings 'ECover' and now 'Leopard III' her first race scheduled as the highlight 'Round the Island Race' in this years Cowes Week.

This office is proud to announce our recent appointment to conduct cargo condition and container damage surveys on cargo removed from the stricken container ship MSC Napoli.

Our interests on behalf of cargo owners stems from insurers and cargo interests across Europe and a vital presence at the Port of Portland in Dorset is essential in order to catch specified cargo as it is brought ashore by heavy lift crane barges. Some 853 containers have been removed from the deck of the MSC Napoli and landed in Portland. Many have to go through decomtamination due to oil ingress and soaking, others are waterlogged and some just plain write-offs.

The 62,000-tonne container carrier, MSC Napoli was grounded a mile off the Lyme Bay World Heritage Coast site in January. A huge team of salvage experts are working on removing the remaining 1,350 containers from the hold of the vessel. More than 110 containers were lost overboard. The deck of the Napoli is now clear and the task of retrieving containers from the swamped holds continues.

Our involvement in such a major UK incident is a major breakthrough for such a small surveying firm. The development of our cargo surveying interest grows daily, the MSC Napoli grounding will play a major part in the continuing growth of this company.