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Marsamxett Harbour
From October the harbour cruise and tour boats on the Strand start their quiet months. A shrink wrap cover keeps them presentable and dry for the next season — and on the seafront, the same film keeps refurbishment scaffolds weatherproof.
Sliema Strand is where Malta’s harbour cruises, Comino trips and the cross-harbour ferry to Valletta start. In season these boats work flat out. Out of season, many of them are laid up — either alongside, on moorings in the creeks, or lifted out to a yard — and that is when the weather gets to them. Sliema Creek itself has no yacht berths and is known to be dangerous in a gregale, which tells you how exposed this side of the harbour can be.
A passenger boat is judged on how it looks on the first morning of the season. Faded seat cushions, salt-crusted rails, sun-cracked varnish and a deck that needs three days of scrubbing all cost money before the first ticket is sold. A fitted cover over the passenger decks keeps that work down, and it can stay on until the week the boat goes back into service.
Around Sliema
The usual problems
A cover over the passenger decks, seating and helm keeps sun, salt and dust off them all winter. It comes off the week you start taking bookings again.
We can wrap the open decks and leave the engine room and wheelhouse accessible, or fit doors so crews can carry on working underneath.
Sheeting on a Sliema seafront scaffold flaps itself to pieces in the first winter blow. Shrink wrap encapsulation is welded into one skin and tensioned to the scaffold, so it doesn’t.
The approach
Passenger boats are built differently from yachts — wide open decks, rows of fixed seating, canopies, rails at every edge. The frame matters more than the film. We build it to clear the seating and shed water off the canopy line, then wrap and vent the whole passenger area as one envelope.
Operators usually need the work done quickly once the season ends, and the cover off quickly when it starts. We agree both dates up front, and can work across a small fleet in sequence so every boat is covered within the same week.
Before we quote
For Sliema operators we survey alongside on the Strand or at the yard, boat by boat. We measure the vessel, work out the frame, the film area, the vents and the doors — and the number you get back is the number you pay. No provisional sums, no “subject to access”.
Illustrative of a typical tour boat lay-up. Your own survey happens in Sliema — or starts from photos, if you’d rather.
Start from your phone
Not every Sliema job needs a visit to get going. Send a couple of photos and tell us how many boats, where they’ll lie over winter and your first booking date, and an installer will tell you what’s involved — including when shrink wrap isn’t the right call.
Whole item in frame, plus one close-up of the access side.
WhatsApp or email, with how many boats, where they’ll lie over winter and your first booking date.
Approach, timescale and a price, in plain English.
Finished covers
Tight, smooth, framed clear of the boat and welded into one skin. This is the standard every Sliema cover is fitted to.
Questions from Sliema
Yes. We work through a fleet one boat after another and agree the order with you, so the boats coming out of service first are covered first.
Whatever suits the boat. Most operators want the passenger decks, seating and helm covered and the engine room accessible. We can cover the whole boat if she’s being laid up ashore.
Yes. Full encapsulation and temporary roofs for refurbishment on the seafront, where sheeting doesn’t survive the winter wind. See our other services for more.
For a winter lay-up, yes. A tarpaulin flaps, chafes the paintwork and lets water pool. Shrink wrap is shrunk tight over a frame, so water runs off and nothing moves against the boat.
Send a photo, the length and where she is. You’ll get a straight answer on the approach, and a fixed price after the survey.
Quick quote
Tell us what
needs covering.
