Subsea protection

FLAGSHIP PROGRAMME DITCHED FOR MROS SHIPS

Britain is stepping up its efforts to protect vital subsea cables and infrastructure in the wake of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline destruction

A £250 million (€285 million) programme to build a successor to the Royal Yacht Britannia, one of former UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s pet projects, has been ditched so that two Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance vessels can be brought forward by some months, the govenrment has confirmed.

Defence secretary Ben Wallace told the UK House of Commons that the decision had been made to accelerate the vessels purchase in light of Russia’s activities in the Ukraine and to ward off current and future threats to cables on the seabed, such as the recent Nord Stream 2 pipeline incident.

The increasing commercialisation of the seabed for energy and ‘‘ communications purposes has resulted in increased opportunities for adversaries to hold Western subsea critical national infrastructure at risk

”To effectively address the current and future threats, we will now invest in MROS ships that protect sensitive defence infrastructure, and civil infrastructure, to improve our ability to detect threats to the seabed and cables,” he said. ”I have also therefore directed the termination of the National Flagship competition with immediate effect to bring forward the first MROS ship in its place and I shall make further announcements on our continued Naval investment in the coming weeks. ”The increasing commercialisation of the seabed for energy and communications purposes has resulted in increased opportunities for adversaries to hold Western subsea critical national infrastructure at risk,” Wallace said. “The vessels will be adaptable, and able to provide a range of capabilities, such as operating remote and autonomous offboard systems for underwater surveillance and seabed warfare.”

The first of two vessels will be delivered as soon as January, the government has confirmed, having been converted from its former function as a commercial vessel. The second will be built from scratch.

In May 2021, Britain announced it would hold a competition for ship builders to tender for a contract to build a national flagship ’reflecting the UK’s burgeoning status as a great, independent maritime trading nation’, Johnson said. It would have been the first national flagship since the Royal Yacht Britannia was decommissioned in 1997.

At the time of writing, the Ministry of Defence had not given any further details of the two MROS vessels on order.

8 Royal Yacht

Britannia was decommissioned in 1997

Fugro awarded offshore site contracts

Geo-data specialist Fugro has won contracts to carry out three offshore wind site investigations off the coast of the Netherlands.

The IJmuiden Ver Seite V-VI, Nederwiek Site I and Hollandse Kust Site VIII zones together will form what the Netherlands Enterprise Agency is calling its largest campaign to date.

It is also part of a sped-up process by the Dutch government to meet offshore wind targets by 2030.

The seabed investigation will be carried out by Fugro’s Seacalf MK V DeepDrive system for seabed cone penetration tests and Wuson MK V Ecodrive.

“Increased laboratory capacity onboard the vessels will ensure faster processing of results,” says Fugro. ”Subsequent extensive laboratory testing will take place in Fugro’s recently extended laboratories in the UK and Belgium.”

All data collected will be used by the wind farm developers for current and future tenders as well as power cable design, archaeology and marine biology investigations, Fugro says.

8 Netherlands offshore wind farms

The order of a new cable-laying vessel by Prysmian is a sign of the firm’s confidence in the burgeoning submarine cable sector.

The submarine cable-laying industry will get a boost in early 2025 with the launch of a cutting-edge vessel as a sequel to Prysmian’s Leonardo da Vinci, which was delivered in 2021.

The ship, which will be built by Fincantieri subsidiary Vard, will have substantially the same hull as Da Vinci, 170 metres in length by 34 metres, and will carry similar cable installation equipment, enabling it to lay lines at more than 3,000 metres depth.

It will hold two carousels of 7,000 and 10,000 tonnes, which the company says will ensure it has the highest cable-loading capacity in the market and means reduced transport time from factory to site.

“The bollard pull will be in excess of 180 tonnes, conferring the capability to perform complex installation operations and supporting a variety of burial tools,” says Prysmian. ”The vessel will be equipped with

It will hold two carousels of 7,000 and 10,000 tonnes, which the company says will ensure it has the highest cable-loading capacity in the market and means reduced transport time from factory to site

Maritime Developments (MDL) has delivered two fully electric back-deck systems destined for offshore flex-lay operations in Brazil.

The 85-tonne 4-track tensioner and 48.5-tonne deck winch were bespokely designed by MDL in-house, to complement the client’s installation spread.

“In a changing industry, we’re proud to be leading the way in sustainable and innovative back-deck technology – the result of our client-driven mindset,” said Andrew Blaquiere, managing director at MDL.

“We were early adopters of an in-house electrical department among our peers, which gives me the confidence to say we are experts in this space when it comes to efficient and – most importantly – safe lay or retrieval operations.”

Specialist systems

For the tensioner, MDL’s patented TTS-4/140 Series Tensioner design was used, where the track configuration allows for a single quadrant to open for product acceptance or abandonment, offering 900mm of clearance.

Since the patented design was unique to MDL’s 50-tonne unit, this system had to be re-engineered to enable the lifting of the much heavier top track.

PRYSMIAN TO EXPAND FLEET WITH €200m VESSEL

DP3 positioning and seakeeping systems, while the maximum transit speed will exceed 16 knots.

Like Leonardo da Vinci, the new vessel will have green credentials: the high cable load capacity and navigation speed will significantly reduce the number of cable installation campaigns needed, compared to other vessels, thus enabling an overall decrease in CO2 emissions and a reduction in fuel consumption of approximately 40%

8 Leonardo da Vinci compared to a traditional cable-laying vessel.”

Prysmian says NOx emissions will be reduced by 85% and a 3MW will also be installed.

The new vessel brings the company’s tally of cable-laying vessels to six, and once operational it will work on projects with Dominion Energy in the US, a link power cable project between the UK and Germany, and two offshore wind projects in Germany known as Dolwin4 and Borwin4.

MDL ELECTRIC SYSTEMS BOUND FOR BRAZIL

The new system features a 5m track contact length and 305-tonne squeeze per track. Like any MDL TTS tensioner, it also features the Failsafe Grip System ensuring constant hold of the product in the event of a critical failure.

8 The 85-tonne 4-track tensioner and 48.5-tonne

deck winch were bespokely designed by MDL in-house

The tensioner was supplied with entry and exit rollers to facilitate the product’s movement into the firing line.