Marine & Ports
MSR was founded in October 1987 as Merseyside Ship Repairers — three former Seaforth Welding employees setting up on their own doorstep, on the Mersey, to fix ships. Nearly forty years later the company is still family-run, still based in Bootle, and ship and port work is still in its name. From two factories totalling 22,000 sq ft, MSR fabricates and repairs steelwork for vessels, quaysides, jetties and dockside structures, backed by welding and fabrication capability built up across 500-plus delivered projects and contractor relationships that include Morgan Est, Costain, Norwest Holst, Murphy, Birse and Laing O’Rourke. The same workshops that produce rail and tunnelling steelwork to Tier 1 contractor standards turn that discipline to marine and ports work — plate, structural steel, and fabricated components sized and finished for a working port, not a showroom. Merseyside is a working coastline, and MSR was set up to serve it directly.
Why MSR
MSR was built to repair ships — the name on the door says so. Nearly forty years on, that founding trade sits alongside rail and tunnelling work for Tier 1 contractors, which means MSR moves between marine steelwork, dock and jetty structures, and fast turnaround fabrication with a discipline most harbourside fabricators never had to develop. A vessel or a berth asset going out of service work is downtime accruing by the hour, not a schedule item — that's the standard MSR was founded on.
Relevant services
FAQ
Common questions.
Does MSR carry out emergency ship repair on Merseyside?
Ship repair is the trade MSR was founded on in 1987. Get in touch directly to discuss a vessel or berth issue and current capacity — response depends on the job and what's on the workshop floor at the time.
What kind of marine and ports steelwork does MSR fabricate?
Structural and plate steelwork for vessels, quaysides, jetties and dockside structures, fabricated across MSR's two Bootle factories (22,000 sq ft combined) and installed on site by MSR's own teams.
Is MSR only based on Merseyside, or does it work further afield?
MSR is headquartered in Bootle but works across the UK and Ireland, taking on marine and ports projects beyond the immediate Mersey coastline.
Why choose MSR over a general steel fabricator for ship or port work?
MSR was Merseyside Ship Repairers before it was anything else, and the same workshops now deliver rail and tunnelling steelwork to Tier 1 contractors — a level of process discipline most fabricators competing purely on general steel work don't carry.
Tell us what you need fabricated.
Structural, architectural or tunnelling steelwork — send drawings or a rough spec and we’ll come back with a straight answer.