Page 27: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2023)

ANCHOR HANDLERS loating wind is an emerg-

Several market players have ing technology currently unveiled new vessel designs

Damen being tested in small scale tailored to the ? oating demonstration and pilot offshore wind market.

Damen says its FLOW-SV is projects; at the end of 2022, speci? cally designed to install

F global ? oating wind com- ground tackles for ? oating missioned capacity was less than 200 offshore wind projects. megawatts (MW). By 2030, close to 6.5 gigawatts (GW) of commercial scale wind farms are planned to be commis- sioned, the majority in Europe and the

Asia Paci? c Region. Then, 2030-2035 will see a period a high commissioning activity as the U.S. joins established and also new European and Asia Paci? c mar- kets. Floating installed capacity is fore- cast to reach around 63 GW by 2035.

Whereas ? oating wind projects will leverage experiences from the bottom- ? xed industry, there will also be many differences, particularly in how ? oating turbines are constructed and installed. A major difference is the need for large an- chor handlers and large subsea construc- tion vessels to pre-install mooring sys- tems designed to maintain the position of the ? oating wind turbines, to tow the structures from port and to hook-up and tension the ? oating turbines to the pre-in-

HEAVY FABRICATION stalled moorings. Based on a detailed re- DRY DOCKS view of technical drivers, Intelatus iden-

MARINE REPAIR ti? es the optimal size of existing anchor

VESSEL CONVERSION handling tug supply (AHTS) vessels for

MACHINE SHOPS mooring pre-lay as having a bollard pull

OFFSHORE ROPE ACCESS of at least 250 tonnes and a clear back

LAY BERTHING

RIDING GANGS deck of over 800 square meters. The ca- pabilities of existing subsea construction vessels with AHC cranes of 250 tonnes and above and large clear back decks are also suitable for certain pre-lay opera- tions. But existing oil and gas market de- mand and the technical requirements of ? oating wind projects is unlikely to be met by these existing vessels.

The above capacity projection of 63

GW by 2035 translates to the installa- tion of over 5,000 ? oating turbines, more than 20,000 anchors and over to 30,000 mooring lines.

Simply put, there will be a large de- mand for vessels in the anchor handling

Galveston – Port Arthur – Corpus Christi - Norfolk (VA) - México (CdC) segment, which has seen limited recent (281) 752-4835 | www.gulfcopper.com | [email protected] newbuilding activity due to poor market www.marinelink.com 27

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