The Harbour Patrol Service provides the Harbour Masters’ eyes and ears on the river with duties including day to day patrolling, supervising large vessels and enforcing river closures for work on bridges, sporting events, plus fireworks on New Year's Eve.

An important consideration in the development of the new vessels was to address the principal causes of down time and vessel availability using innovative engineering to design out the known sources of equipment failure.

‘The sand bearing waters of the Thames are known to cause erosion and potential blockage to the engine and gearbox cooling systems and wear to the stern gear, said PLA marine engineer Alan Cartwright. ‘For this reason, twin installation John Deere 6068TFM, 200hp marine diesel engines were chosen as they could provide the required amount of power for the desired patrol speed of 18 knots at a commercial rating, without relying upon intercooling to the turbo-chargers.’

E.P. Barrus has also supplied the first John Deere marine diesel engines to be put into service with the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD). The BVT Surface Fleet – Halmatic project covers the supply of four 14.75m Army workboats featuring twin John Deere 6068TFM75 engine installations. The newbuilds will replace two previous classes of single engine boats, with the new dual engine installations giving better redundancy and manoeuvrability. The multi-purpose craft will see duty pushing and towing, laying and recovering moorings, fire fighting, and undertaking oil pollution and environmental control operations.