Page 20: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (January 2000)

Monitoring & Control

Offshore Supply Vessels Rebuilt - Cargo Handling, Tank Sounding Automated

Two circa-1980 vessels are moored — decommissioned, but preserved from corrosion — in the frigid, dry climate of

Murmansk, Russia. The hulls are a supe- rior grade of 22 mm thick steel - not eco- nomical to duplicate today, and of sig- nificant value. The challenge: rebuild the vessels to meet newbuild standards. and use them in a pending long term contract with a large oil company to sup- ply offshore rigs in the huge Terra Nova oil field off the east coast of Newfound- land. Secunda Marine Services Limited of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada met this challenge, and now has two multi function, ice class 1C, anchor handling tug supply vessels to add to their fleet.

After purchasing the vessels from a

Russian oil company in 1998, Secunda transported them to their Dartmouth shipyard. There, the boats were com- pletely gutted in preparation for a rebuild to replace all equipment and meet newbuild standards. In each boat.

Visual Tag System monitors the status of the port propulsion engine, giving a visual represen- tation of the cylinder temperatures. pmc

I MACS ntegrated Machinery,

Alarm and Control System

Omni Chief m -

DISTRIBUTED

CONTROL and

MONITORING

UNITS. 20 "CD EU

PRIME MOVER CONTROLS INC

DESIGN, MANUFACTURE and SERVICE of

MARINE CONTROL COMPONENTS and SYSTEMS

Electronic - Pneumatic - Hydraulic 3600 GILMORE WAY, BURNABY BC CANADA V5G 4R8

TEL (604) 433-4644 FAX (604) 433-5570 www.pmc-controls.com

Circle 248 on Reader Service Card only the steel hulls and propulsion shafts were saved and all other equipment was installed new, including two 5,500 hp

Wiirtsila 16V25 propulsion engines, an

Ulstein triple drum waterfall type anchor handling/tow winch with 300 ton line pull, two Leroy Somer 2090 KVA shaft generators, and a Caterpillar 3512B gen- erator. Secunda investigated many sup- pliers for the automated alarm and cargo operation systems, but found the solu- tion right in their own backyard.

Secunda turned to Visual Tag System (VTS) monitoring and control software from Trihedral Engineering of nearby

Bedford, Nova Scotia, Canada. The VTS software is used to automate three func- tions onboard the renamed MV Trinity

Sea and MV Burin Sea: pump and valve

Overview screen showing tank levels of all ship- board tanks. Clicking on an individual tank takes the user to the system for that tank. control, alarm and monitoring, and the tank sounding system. Communicating with Omron C200 series programmable controllers (PLCs), VTS reads 800 digi- tal and analog I/O points. A dual moni- tor VTS station was installed in the engine control room, and a second simi- lar system was installed on the bridge.

L Q N S E A L

LONPLATE

EXCEPTIONALLY

TOUGH

RESILIENT

SHEET

VINYL MARINE

DECKING

Circle 236 on Reader Service Card