Sif Netherlands

At Damen Shipyards in Flushing, Smulders-Eiffage built the jacket and topside for the Deutsche Bucht offshore substation, on contract to Van Oord.

Vessel fleet

After the handover by Damen Shipyards Group in 2017 of the first service operations vessel 9020, the Bibby Wavemaster 1, to Bibby Marine Services, a second vessel of this same type was completed in 2019. This vessel, christened the Bibby Wavemaster Horizon, was immediately put to work following handover at the Hohe See and Albatros wind farms in the German sector of the North Sea. The latest Fast Crew Supplier from Damen, the type 2710, is proving a huge success in the offshore wind energy sector. After High Speed Transfers took delivery of the prototype in 2018, a vessel christened HST Hudson, the sister ships HST Sofia and HST Harri were completed in 2019 and the HST Euan in 2020. Damen also signed a contract with Hung Hua Construction from Taiwan for the fabrication of two FSC 2710 type vessels, due to be named Falcon 1 and Falcon 2. Elsewhere, on behalf of this client, Damen is building an FCS 2610. The FCS 2710 is the successor to the FCS 2610, of which around fifty have been built in just a short period of time.

In April 2019, Den Helder-based Acta Marine took delivery of the walk-to-work construction support vessel Acta Centaurus, a sister vessel to the Acta Auriga, which was handed over in 2018 by Ulstein Verft. Immediately following her christening on 22 May, the Acta Centaurus set to work on behalf of MHI Vestas Offshore Wind in the Deutsche Bucht Offshore Wind Farm. From the moment she was delivered, the Acta Auriga has been hard at work, without interruption on the Bard 1 Offshore Wind Farm project. At the end of 2019, Acta Marine was able to sign a contract for the Acta Centaurus, for deployment in the Borssele 3 and 4 wind farms.

The Bibby Wavemaster Horizon is seen here during handover by the Damen Shipyards Group. (Photograph: Damen)

The brand-new Acta Centaurus was christened in Den Helder, on 22 May 2019. (Photograph: Acta Marine) Fugro is also making good progress. As well as numerous orders from the oil and gas industry, the engineering firm has been awarded a series of assignments for geotechnical surveys and the related work from the offshore wind energy sector, in 2019. For example, research work was carried out off the Dutch coast in the Hollandse Kust Zuid Offshore Wind Farm and in the Neart na Gaoithe Offshore Wind Farm, off the coast of Scotland. The last of these projects involved a survey along the export cable corridor, undertaken from the walking jack-up barge Wavewalker 1. In the United States, Fugro also carried out survey work off the coast of New Jersey in the framework of the Ocean Wind Project, and in Taiwan as part of the Greater Changhua project. The first steps were also taken towards entering the South Korean wind market.

Den Helder-based Vroon Offshore Services deployed its walk-to-work vessels VOS Start and VOS Stone on behalf of the offshore wind energy market. Over the past few years, for example, the VOS Start has worked at the Walney Wind Farms in the Irish Sea, Borkum Riffgrund 2 in the German sector of the North Sea and Burbo Bank in British waters, on behalf of MHI Vestas, and since the end of 2019, in the Northwester Offshore Wind Farm, off the coast of Belgium. The VOS Stone was deployed by Siemens Gamesa off the German North Sea coast, as part of the Hohe See Offshore Wind Farm n