Everybody wants a piece of the Offshore Wind Industry:
Normally used to transport yachts, but everybody needs to step in to help to develop renewable energy as fast as possible:
MV YACHT SERVANT loaded with 90 windmill Blades for Vestas in Puerto Brisa
She shows the scars from a hard time working off USEC:
GEOQUIP SAENTIS (ex TOISA VIGILANT) arrived in Vlissingen Sloehaven from
New Bedford (US) heading for Shipyard Reimerswaal.
Photo: Wim Kosten Sr (c)
Geoquip Saentis, formerly Toisa Vigilant
New pipelay vessel under construction at Qingdao Wuchuan Heavy in China for Shanghai Salvage Co. Ltd. Due for delivery Aug. 2023 and intended to be on long term charter to Norwegian Offshore Construction Contractor Havfram:
Illustration by building yard
First vessel for the newly established Norwind Offshore,
Norwind Breeze is out on her first sea trial after conversion at Vard Brattvåg:
All Norwegian designed PSVs and many other types of vessels have passive anti.roll tanks,
A number of them have been converted to SOVs
More “double X” CSOVs for Acta Marine:
This time to be powered by Methanol and built at Tersan Yard, Turkey, but still designed by Ulstein.
Hybrid heavy transport vessel for the offshore wind industry:
The venture was created in 2021, under which Crowley will own and operate the vessels crewed by US mariners, while Crowley and Esvagt will share in the financials of the venture.
Meanwhile in Europe:
No access to capital is a big one, since upstream oil and gas companies are still unpopular. GoM operators are involved in peripheral ways right now- for example, tidewater is using the Regulus and Polaris to perform seabed sampling and bathymetric surveys. Fugro Enterprise is working up and down the East Coast. Listen to Tidewater’s quarterly earnings call and you will get a better idea.
The other big reason GoM operators are not involved yet is that the need for these SOVs to operate, install cables, etc is still years away. They could build a boat in less than a year, only to sit around for several more.
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No need to sit around waiting for the US to get their act together. Plenty of work for purpose built vessels in the offshore wind industry worldwide.
The Energean Star (built for Gulfmark as the HERMES at BAE Mobile and never worked) was sent to Poland where it was converted to work on wind farms. This is a USA built hull, ready to work.
As Hermes:
Under tow in Kiel Canal, 15. Nov. 2020. Photo: fabianv
As Pegasus:
JAX, 18.Oct. 2018. Photo: Vitaliy Kharchenko
The stern is a bad place to put a walk to work gangway on a ship as there will be a lot of movement there when the vessel pitches.
The best place for a walk to work gangway is at the transvers axis where there will be the least movement when the vessel pitches.
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As can be seen on pictures of both purpose built and converted SOVs above.
Olympic are getting in on the SOV game.
They seem to be getting speculatively built without charters lined up, at least I don’t think a charterer has been publicly announced, perhaps they have one but it is not public knowledge.
Some companies are speculatively building SOVs without a charter, then they are winning charters when the vessels are already half built.
Other companies are taking a more conservative approach and only committing to build vessels when they actually have a charter lined up, but the speculative approach of building SOVs without a contract seems to be winning companies business.
Companies need to have a lot of capital available to take the speculative build approach, a lot of companies probably don’t have that kind of money lying around.
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More details on the Olympic vessels: