C-Installer 312’ft.
She’s got a hell of a house on her. Were they able to get her in under 6,000 ITC?
Yes it’s like 5500 if I remember correctly
When is the crane going on?
Can anyone shed light as to why Chouest seems to be the only company that puts drop down bow thrusters in almost every OSV they build? It seems as almost every other operator out there opts for tunnel thrusters whether they have Z-drives or not. Those drop down thrusters are more maintenance but they perform so much better than a tunnel.
It makes sense that it’s a cost and maintenance issue with most companies when building, but Chouest is building in house at NAF, LAShip and has a much lower construction cost so they are able to add options that make a better product at the same or in some cases less cost than most companies that have to contract the construction.
Maybe some of the older Ulstein/Rolls Royce DDT’s are high maintenance, I’m on an ECO 304’ with Brunvoll retractable thruster and a Brunvoll transverse thruster. Both powered by Marelli electric motors. Very low maintenance, Clean and lubricate the intermediate housing, sample the gear oil and change the filters when samples are bad or once a year and grease the motor drive end and non drive end bearings every 900 hours. So far, we haven’t had any issues with the thrusters.
318’. The supply boats will be 312’. Isn’t Fourchon going to be fun with a bunch of those! And think, they will let you drive one for the same day rate as a 240 lol.
The swing down thrusters DP like a dream, and can be used in transit mode, with no other engines online and used to hove to in weather. They will hold heading and give very little if any forward motion if desired, burning very little fuel. Or you can drift when on stand by in favorable weather, and use SDT to jog back to rig. A nice, quiet feature IMO.
I guess my contention is that these companies are spending $25,30,35MM, etc… on a vessel that is sold as and required to be a very capable DP vessel. And to give the vessel the best opportunity to hold station would be to put a swing down thruster. Yet the majority skimp on this feature and go the route of having tunnel thrusters which don’t hold station near as well. To me it’s like buying a Ferrari and getting your tires at Wal-Mart.
[QUOTE=Bigpuddie;130522]The swing down thrusters DP like a dream, and can be used in transit mode, with no other engines online and used to hove to in weather. They will hold heading and give very little if any forward motion if desired, burning very little fuel. Or you can drift when on stand by in favorable weather, and use SDT to jog back to rig. A nice, quiet feature IMO.[/QUOTE]
I really miss SDT’s and DDT’s. I like the money however…