Ulstein won the design and equipment contract for Van Oord’s new subsea rock installation (SRI) vessel Bravenes.
Van Oord’s Bravenes. From Ulstein |
Working in close cooperation with Van Oord, this is the first fully integrated design where Ulstein is responsible for the development and integration of both the mission equipment and vessel design. The vessel will be constructed at Sinopacific Shipbuilding Group in China and be delivered in 2016.
The vessel is features a DP-3 system, the distinct ULSTEIN X-BOW hull line and meets the requirements for clean design notation, green passport and ice class 1A – PC7. Furthermore, the vessel and its equipment are designed for year-round operability in harsh weather and high-sea states.
Under the contract, Ulstein will also supply the main fall pipe deployment system and the majority of the ancillary systems of the SRI tower. Ulstein put a strong focus on simplicity, by mechanizing the systems as much as possible, enabling higher levels of safety and control and as such minimizing human interaction during the deployment and recovery of the fall pipe. The resulting system is robust and fully customized, able to efficiently switch between various rock installation modes and a wide range of rock sizes.
“We started developing a new, innovative fall pipe deployment system in summer 2013 and proved its feasibility by testing a real scale model early this year,” says Arjan Boezeman, director sales and concept development at Ulstein Idea Equipment Solutions. “It has been engineered to provide best-in-class installation cycle times in water depths up to 600m and beyond.”