Steve Branagh, the founder of RSB Rigging Solutions has a long history, both as a yacht captain, and as a business, with the biggest names in the superyacht rigging industry. One of these such names is the company BSI. We spoke to Ulf Josefsson, one of the BSI directors about the history of BSI and how they have grown to become one of the largest leading manufacturers and suppliers of rod, wire, fibre rigging and components to the growing carbon rigging sector for both new builds and in retrofit, globally.

BSI started as a small Scandinavian supplier of wire rigging hardware over thirty years ago, supplying sailing yachts (of) from around 22ft. At that time, BSI was the biggest manufacturer of wire rigging in the world. As they grew, the company began to extend their product lines and gradually started getting in to rod rigging as suppliers to amongst many OEM builders, X-Yachts,  as well as Jongert in  the superyacht market. This expansion continued until they bought the rod rigging company, Global Rigging, in 2005.  Since then BSI have kept growing to become the worldwide leading supplier of wire rigging fittings, rod rigging, and custom components to carbon rigging to new builds and the ever growing refit sector.

When Ulf joined BSI in 2005, the opportunities in the larger yacht division was realised and the company opened its dedicated department for superyachts. From here the company has grown into a global multi-million Euro business. In 2015 Robbie Sargent, a well known figure in the yacht rigging industry since the late 80:s when he and Ulf were colleagues at Riggarna, joined the BSI Team bringing it to yet another level.  BSI is the preferred supplier to Southern Spars and supply hardware interface for the EC6 rigging, as well as for the carbon rigging from Carbo-Link. BSI also supplies all the rod rigging for Oyster Yachts. We reinvest heavily into new equipment and technology to move with the times. Customisation is a major part of the sailing industry these days, and at BSI we have made sure that we keep up with the times. The sailing industry has grown and BSI with it… 

Ulf comments,

”Going back to some of the first projects the BSI superyacht division worked on, the stunning 58M sloop Kokomo III stand out amongst the new builds and the 64M ketch ex. Felicita West amongst refits.

Another project close to my heart is Juliet, a 146’ ketch built by Huisman that I sold rigging to when the yacht was launched in the early 90’s and where BSI updated and replaced her standing rigging package in 2015.  At the time Juliet was launched, she was one of the largest yachts on the water!

BSI has offices in Denmark, USA and United Kingdom with distributors and service centers all over the world… in Cape Town, we have supplied every rod rigging package for Southern Wind Shipyard over the last 12 years; if the yacht is build with the EC6 rigging, then the interface equipment is all BSI hardware.

In our opinion, one of the reasons for our success is that we do everything in-house; no-outsourcing other than for aluminium anodizing and chromium plating of bronze fitting. This means that when the time is tight, BSI have only one factory to contract to get the job done.

BSI also recently bought Gori Propellers. We supply Gori Propellers to all the TP52s, Volvo 60s and Gunboat.’’

Steve has known and worked with Ulf, Robbie and BSI for many years…

‘’ We have a long standing relationship with BSI and the partners, both professionally and personally. Ulf has a vast amount of knowledge about everything to do with rigging… hence why he is coined in the industry as ‘Rigipedia’. 

We recently worked on the mighty Kamaxitha with BSI, helping the client navigate their way through a trying NDT inspection, which resulted in a very happy client and owner. It is great to keep these excellent relationships with our suppliers, and to work together for the client… we look forward to continuing this relationship for many years to come!’’