Page 36: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (October 2002)

Sea Technology

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A specialty vessel, which will be used for installing wind turbines offshore, is under construction in China at the

Shanhaiguan shipyard for Mayflower Energy Ltd.

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It is little secret that efforts to develop and harness new forms of clean power is an ever-present global task to serve the dual purpose of ensuring a cleaner environment and to be less taxing on non-renewable resources. The wind has emerged as a viable, if some- times unreliable and often more costly*, option to gen- erate power, (see chart next page)

Plans to build the U.K.'s largest offshore wind farm, to provide electricity for 50,000 homes in Wales, has been given the green light. The North Hoyle Offshore

Wind Farm will feature 30 wind turbines, located five miles off the Welsh coast between Prestatyn and Rhyl in North Wales. There are currently two additional major offshore wind farm projects under consideration for the UK, and the hope is, by 2010, to power more than three million homes with this renewable energy source. "The U.K. government has plans that will require the installation of 1,300 new 2MW offshore turbines over the next ten years," says David Donnelly, Chairman of

Mayflower Energy. "There are also plans for major installations around other European coasts. We expect demand for this type of specialist vessel to be very high, and we are happy that Graig has helped us to con- tract with a Chinese shipyard for the construction of this technologically advanced vessel to install the tur- bines."

Offshore 'wind farms' have thus come into vogue, but the efficient installation of these massive units in the aquatic environment requires a specialty vessel.

The Plan

Mayflower Energy recognized that there is an emerg- *The estimated costs to society and the environment from fossil fuels and nuclear power, not including nuclear waste and decommissioning costs, as determined by the EU study ExternE.

Sources: Wall Street Journal, August 27, 2002, page A10, Internation- al Energy Agency, ExternE, Wind Power Monthly. ing market for vessels, which can efficiently install off- shore wind turbines, which are likely to be of multi- megawatt size, with tubular towers rising about 100 m above the water surface and blades cutting a 100 m diameter circle.

Mayflower Energy is based in Middlesbrough in

England, and is staffed by a small team with experience from the offshore heavy lift industry. It is a subsidiary of Mayflower Corporation, a large U.K.-based compa- ny whose main business is producing buses and spe- cialized trucks and manufacturing steel pressings for the motor industry. Recognizing that increased invest- ment in offshore wind energy would require capable installation vessels, Mayflower Energy came up with the TIV concept. The potential market is considerable, with several hundred-wind turbines to be installed off the coasts of Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Germany,

Holland, Belgium, France and the U.K., over the next few years from 2003. One location alone off Denmark, for example, is scheduled to have 72 wind turbines with a rated total output of 150MW.

The Ship — Mayflower Resolutions

Captain James Cook was born in the village of Mar- ton, Yorkshire on October 27, 1728 and is very much a local hero in these parts close to Middlesbrough and eventually sailed from the Port of Whitby on Wind

Powered vessels (Sailing Ships). Therefore it is no coincidence that Mayflower Energy has chosen the name Resolution as that was the vessel appointed by the Admiralty as Captain Cook's flagship, which set sail on July 13, 1772.

The $45 million ship, a world first, will be capable of carrying the parts for up to 10, 3 MW wind turbines and should be able to install them at the rate of one a day. The 426 x 125 x 26 ft. (130 x 38 x 8 m) vessel will have six jack-up legs so it will be able to provide a sta- ble work platform in waters up to as shallow as 9 ft. (3 m), and as deep as 115 ft. (35 m). Mayflower said that the use of its vessel would be cheaper for windfarm construction than current jack-up barge methods.

Mayflower's brief was to design a vessel that will

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