Seaway Heavy Lifting Gears for Another Beatrice Jacket Setup Campaign

The second part of the foundation installation campaign at the Beatrice offshore wind farm site will start with the return of the Seaway Heavy Lifting’s largest vessel, Oleg Strashnov, and its associated support vessels.

The vessel is scheduled to carry out the installation works for approximately one month, starting November 16.

Eighty four jackets will support the Beatrice wind turbines, the first of which is due to be installed in summer 2018. The remaining two jackets will each support a Siemens offshore transformer module.

The jackets, which are up to 80 meters tall, have been fabricated at facilities in Fife, Newcastle, Belgium and Denmark.

The heavy lift vessel (HLV) Oleg Strashnov will continue to install foundation jacket substructures into the pre-installed piles.

Prior to jacket substructure installation, pile cleaning is undertaken to ensure there is no soil remaining on the inside surface of the pile after soil plug removal. The inside of the pile needs to be clean so that the grout bonds between the jacket stab in and the internal pile wall. Inside pile cleaning will be performed by means of a combination of steel brushes and high pressure water jets.

The jacket substructures will then be delivered to sites by cargo barge and transferred onto the HLV to connect with the rest of the jacket prior to installation.

To remind, the guard vessels Moremma PD135 and Pleiades BF155, are currently carrying out guard vessel duties in the BOWL construction site. All vessels can be contacted on VHF CH16.

Mariners are advised to navigate with caution and keep continued watch on VHF Ch. 70 / 16 when navigating the area.

The Beatrice project, which will be operated from a base in Wick and capable of providing enough energy to power up to 450,000 homes, should be fully operational by the end of 2019.