Norway: Seven Havila Achieves Milestone. Eight Divers Together on Seabed

The state-of-the art diving support vessel, the Seven Havila, owned by Subsea 7 and Havila Shipping, has achieved a world first in the number of divers working on the seabed.

Gael Cailleaux, Vice President for Offshore Resources at Subsea 7 confirmed the achievement that eight divers were in action at the same time.

He said: “To our knowledge, there have never been so many divers on the seabed from one single dive support vessel simultaneously. We wanted to test having eight divers on the seabed at the same time. Both diving bells were in action together. While one diver stayed inside each diving bell, three divers from each diving bell worked outside.”

The diving test took place near Stavanger, Norway, in a depth of 30 metres. The diving system, provided by the German company Dræger, includes a 10 chamber 24 men saturation suite, fully computerised, with double bell handling system, able to work down to 400 metres and up to 6m Hs. The Seven Havila, one of the most advanced diving support vessel in the world, was designed and fitted with the latest diving systems. In 2011 it was presented with the highly prestigious Support Vessel of the Year award at the OSJ Conference in London. It is designed by Havyard Design & Engineering in Fosnavåg, Norway and constructed at Havyard Ship Technology in Leirvik, Sogn, Norway.

Havyard Design & Engineering’s Design Manager Arve Helsem Leine commented: “You feel a sense of pride and humility when part of designing and constructing such a vessel. This proves that when you have ship-owners, operators, designers, shipyard and diving company all involved from the start, the end result will be good. The Seven Havila is a great example of this.”

From conception, the Seven Havila was designed to comply with advanced systems of saturation diving. It is a modern diving support vessel, custom designed for subsea operations assisted by saturation divers.

CEO Njål Sævik of Havila Shipping is very proud of the vessel’s world record achievement. “We frequently hear that the Seven Havila is the world’s most advanced and modern diving support vessel and this is further proof to that statement. For a shipping company like ours, it is a great advantage being a part-owner of a vessel of this type and having the opportunity to offer it to the market,” said Sævik.

The Seven Havila is designed with a focus on operating in challenging environments, while achieving maximum efficiency in carrying out its operations. In addition, there is an emphasis on a good working environment for the offshore personnel, along with quality and security during all operations.

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Offshore Energy Today Staff, January 30, 2012; Image: Havyard