Page 58: of Marine News Magazine (August 2019)

57 59

FEATURE: OFFSHORE EXCELLENCE

MN100

The 34-meter versions of

Damen’s Fast Crew Supplier, the FCS 3410, is designed to transport personnel to offshore wind sites.

Another arrow in Damen’s US quiver is the Accommo- More than six decades later, the company is the planet’s dation Support Vessel (ASV) 9020, a walk-to-work vessel largest owner and operator of OSVs, and today it stands designed for transporting and providing accommodation ready to lead the industry yet again – this time out of the for offshore personnel for up to a month. After the ? rst prolonged offshore sector downturn.

ASV 9020, Bibby WaveMaster 1, proved itself in the Eu- Tidewater took top spot among OSV owners and opera- ropean market, customer Bibby Marine Services ordered a tors in terms of ? eet size when it wrapped up its acquisi- second ASV 9020 within a year of operations. tion of fellow Houston-based peer GulfMark in November 2018. John Rynd, Tidewater’s President, CEO and Direc- tor told MarineNews in 2018 that the merged company

TIDEWATER, also boasts the “broadest operating footprint and strongest ? nancial pro? le in the OSV sector”.

Now Larger and Better-financed

Tidewater has led the offshore supply vessel (OSV) mar- Pre-merger, Tidewater and GulfMark had each sepa- ket from the start – and that’s because it helped create it. rately leveraged ? nancial restructuring efforts to better

The company’s very ? rst vessel in 1956, Ebb Tide, was the position themselves independently to pounce on the off- industry’s ? rst vessel to be designed and built speci? cally shore market rebound. The former emerged from Chap- for supplying materials to offshore platforms. ter 11 in July 2017, and the latter did the same in No-

August 2019

MN 58