UK: South Boats Secures Order for Two Wind Farm Support Vessels

South Boats Special Projects Ltd. and Offshore Wind Services BV announce the two companies have signed a contract for the construction of a pair of South Catamaran 19m Wind Farm Support Vessels. The two craft will be built at South Boats’ new facility in East Cowes and will be delivered in March and April 2012 respectively.

The craft are the latest generation of South Boats’ class leading wind farm service vessels and are the third and fourth of the new 19m class. Both will be built to DNV 1A1 HSLC R2 Wind Farm Service 1 class and UK MCA Category 1 flag. Twin MTU 10V2000M72 1205mhp marine diesel engines with ZF gears driving Ultra Dynamics UJ575 water jet units for sprint speeds to 27 knots. The 19m is the first vessel to be designed with the benefit of extensive motion data captured from existing vessels and various wind farm projects. The hull is also fully tank tested to optimise the performance without sacrificing any of the company’s legendary sea keeping and ‘general purpose’ working abilities. The vessels are designed to be capable of accepting the Houlder TAS access system and can accommodate three 10ft containers on deck.

Offshore Wind Services BV is co-operation between two Dutch companies, Workship Contractors and Royal Doeksen. In turn, this co-operation is working under a co-operation agreement with established UK operator, Offshore Wind Power Marine Services Ltd. of Conwy, North Wales and the vessels will be branded as OWPMS craft.

Jan Dirk Hudig of Workship Contractors says of the order “These new builds with South Boats are a perfect example of how the market is maturing by requiring higher standards through applying full ISM and Class regulations to wind farm transfer vessels that so far have only worked under MCA Domestic Codes. These vessels combine the proven sea keeping and reliability of the South Boats design, with a larger, more capable hull and improved functionality to meet the current and future requirements of the offshore wind transfer market”.

 Ben Colman of South Boats Special Projects Ltd. says of the order “We are delighted to sign these contracts with Offshore Wind Services, which we regard as an extension of our existing strong relationship held with both Offshore Wind Power Marine Services and Royal Doeksen. The technical team at OSV set us some challenges in the detail design phase of their vessels, which I am sure will result in high specification and technically very capable craft”.

South Boats Special Special Projects Ltd. of Cowes, Isle of Wight, UK, are the largest builders of offshore wind farm support vessels in the world. With 65 vessels in service within the sector with 13 operators, extensive operational and development experience has been gained on over 25 projects in 7 countries. With an extensive portfolio of designs from 15m to over 30m, South Boats develop vessels from the industry for the industry.