New Offshore Assistance Vessel design unveiled

The new 72m Passenger ship class vessel has been developed with a cost efficient propulsion arrangement with low fuel consumption and maintenance cost. The shape of the vessel is designed to reduce motions and increase comfort for technicians in order to mitigate risk of sea sickness and weather downtime, especially in the harsh conditions of the North Sea. It accommodates up to 60 persons in comfortable single cabins, embedded in a true passenger ship class vessel including two day rooms, auditorium and a fitness room.

“Our new design already reflects the new requirements regarding sea-keeping behaviour and comfort for technicians combined with cost reductions will lead to increasing demand in SOVs,” said Hendrik Groene, managing director, Heavylift@Sea. “We see already, that this new vessel class replaces older units coming from the oil and gas segment.”

The vessel also focusses on efficiency in O&M and is therefore able to stay on location for several weeks offering more working time and less time in transit, while the configuration enables an efficient flow of people and spare parts around the vessel.

The motion compensated gangway, which is accessible directly from the elevator grants direct access to wind turbines and offshore platforms in significant wave heights of up to 2.5m, arranged for workability at water levels of +/- 4.0m around MSL. With the cargo transfer system, a barrier-free handling of spare parts and components of is possible up to 300kg without using a crane.

In addition, the vessel is equipped with a daughter craft in its own hangar at the stern to be used as a second way of access to the boat landing of offshore structures. The hangar is said to increase the safety of operation, especially in rough weather conditions.

Analysts estimate that the SOV market has a potential of 25 – 40 SOVs until 2020 whereas Offshore Wind is expected to grow to 23.5 GW, tripling current installed capacity by 2020.

“The O&M market is only starting, and therefore demand for SOVs will grow with commissioned wind farms. SOVs are an attractive market segment with an excellent perspective offering stable growth and attractive charters. Therefore we see the market entry into the SOV segment as the logical next step to develop our company further and also meet the growing demand for this new vessel class,” added Dr Benjamin Vordemfelde, managing director, SeaRenergy.