Siemens this week celebrated the official christenings of the offshore wind industry’s very first, purpose-built Service Operation Vessels (SOV). The christening events took place in cooperation with Esvagt A/S, owner of the two vessels, in Rostock, Germany, and Hamburg, Germany.
The ‘Esvagt Froude’ was the first to be formally christened on June 23 in Rostock and is supporting service and maintenance operations at EnBW’s Baltic II wind farm in the Baltic Sea. On June 25, the ‘Esvagt Faraday’ was officially christened in Hamburg and will be deployed for service of wpd’s Butendiek wind farm in the North Sea. With a large onboard parts storage area and comfortable accommodations, as many as 40 Siemens’ technicians will live and work on the SOVs near the wind farm for several weeks at a time. The motion-sensored Ampelmann hydraulic access system on the SOVs will contribute to increasing the working window impacted by weather by enabling technicians to safely “walk to work” in the turbines at higher wave heights. Siemens has also signed a chartering agreement with ship owner, Bernhard Schulte, for two Ulstein SX175 SOVs to be purpose-built for the long-term service and maintenance operations of the Gemini and Sandbank/Dan Tysk offshore wind power plants in the North Sea.