Boat landing system
Supplying an industry-first height adjustable boat landing system to facilitate safe and effective jack-up vessel access offshore.
Enabling one of the world’s largest offshore wind farms.
We were approached by offshore vessel operator Gulf Marine Services (GMS) to develop a system to facilitate variable height access between a Self-Elevating Support Vessel and Crew Transfer Vessels.
GMS was working to support its own client, Danish wind developer Orsted, in the development of Hornsea One in the North Sea. This 1.2GW offshore wind farm is one of the largest offshore wind farms in the world, generating enough power to supply over 1 million UK homes.
Orsted required that the GMS Endeavour vessel, which was providing accommodation for 300 offshore workers, remain elevated at a height of 15.1 metres above sea level, while at the same time providing the capability to safely dock the crew transfer vessel against it.
This meant that conventional gangways were not a suitable access method, and so we worked to develop a bespoke boat landing system to meet GMS and Orsted’s needs.
Innovating an industry-first access concept.
Our approach was to design and produce an integrated boat landing and access tower, to suit the bespoke needs of the vessels concerned.
Through our design, we were able to enable up to 200 safe passenger transits per day. The resulting system incorporated five height settings to support access across the full range of jacked-up positions, with the vessels’s existing 230 tonne capacity on-board crane being able to adjust the system to each position required.
We also engineered the tower to withstand the extremities of the metocean data collected over the past 50 years, as well as adhering to the understandably stringent safety regulations required for offshore structures.
Local manufacturing to suit offshore wind project needs.
Following mobilisation, our boat landing system faced a swift first deployment to support Ørsted’s Hornsea Project One offshore wind farm, 120 kilometres off the Yorkshire coast in North East England.
To support meeting this project need, we fabricated the system a short way up the coastline from the wind farm on the banks of the River Tyne, and we assembled & installed it on to GMS Endeavour from our Port of Blyth facility, also in North East England. As well as suiting our customer’s requirements, working in this way helped us deliver the project quickly, and it was completed from concept to commissioning within a five-month timeframe.
We have since replicated this local manufacturing approach into other global locations, to suit our customers’ varying project needs.
“We commissioned tried and tested design consultancy Osbit to work with us to deliver this industry-first concept. The structure and its interface to GMS Endeavour has been designed, built, installed and finally approved in accordance with classification requirements. We have been very pleased with the entire process, with GMS Endeavour now having supported the Hornsea Project One wind farm.”