Seawork awards recognise renewables

The ‘Spirit of Innovation’ trophy was awarded to Houlder of the UK for the wind turbine access system which it has developed in conjunction with BMT Nigel Gee. The system provides personnel access between operational and maintenance workboats and offshore wind turbine towers, and is intended to provide safety and productivity benefits over current arrangements. It uses a motion-compensated gangway and dampening bow rollers to deliver access at significant wave heights up to 2m, said to be somewhat more than existing solutions, without the need for complex DP systems.

KPM Marine was runner up, with its EcoMast, another joint development, in this case with vessel builder South Boats. EcoMast is a wind-powered onboard power generation system. Among the other award winners was yet another accolade for EchoPilot’s forward looking sounder, in its latest guise, which is said to offer similar benefits and performance to similar systems, but at a fraction of the capital cost.