Sietas delivers offshore installer

The 140m long and 38m wide offshore wind farm transport and installation jack-up Aeolus is of 6,500dwt and carries up to 5,600 tons, She will operate in water depths to 45m and boasts DP2 technology.

Drawing 5.7m, she has Diesel-electric propulsion comprising four gensets of together 20,000kW and a speed of 12 knots. Her engine configuration was not reported.

When

Sietas took the order for the ship in 2010 she was the first of her type to be ordered in a German shipyard. Ironically, her delivery now comes as the facility goes into Russian hands.

The former J.J. Sietas Werft, once one of Germany’s most successful private shipyards, has been in administration for more than two years and is being taken over on 10 March as Pella Sietas by Hamburg-based shipbuilding concern Terraline.

Terraline is a subsidiary of St Petersburg’s Pella Shipyard which has orders in hand for tugs, ice-breakers, supply and other specialised vessels with high outfitting requirements and has pledged to continue to build ships at Sietas for at least eight years.

Aeolus is for Dutch operators van Oord. Equipped with an NMF crane capable of hoisting 900 tonnes at 30m outreach she has accommodation for 74 and will be commissioned in spring for use in the installation of wind farm foundations and turbines. That will be after she has been fitted with four 84m long legs and associated equipment in Bremerhaven.

When

Aeolus

was first ordered, the contract was reported worth about €100 million. But her cost is believed to risen considerably since then to more than €120 million.