George West was born and brought up in the postcard pretty fishing village of Gardenstown, able to witness the beauty and the brutality of the North Sea on a daily basis. Destined to continue the family fishing tradition, an accident meant the dream of skippering his own trawler was realised but short lived. An on-shore business career followed but could not drown out the call of the sea, and he eventually found himself appointed Coxswain of the Peterhead Pilot Vessel.
At 04.00 on June 19th 2009, he went to the assistance of MV Ijsselstroom, a Dutch tug which had girted and capsized whilst working with a barge on the harbours new break-water. Although all crew were rescued successfully, George was reminded again of the lottery involved in recovering a man overboard. From that dramatic night, he determined to design a product which would allow easy deployment, simple capture of the casualty and secure recovery on to the vessel even in the most difficult conditions.
After a decade in development, the QUIKSLING system has been taken from concept through a dozen iterations to a fully tested product, with every specified material approved and every stage of deployment practiced till proven. More than 150 skippers have already bought the system for their own vessel- proof if proof were needed that George was not alone in seeing the need for a dramatically better approach to man overboard Recovery.