The offshore installation vessel Victoria Mathias has arrived at the construction site of Germany’s offshore wind for the first time. During the so-called sea trials the ship is tested extensively before it will subsequently start its work. At the same time, maintenance work was carried out on the metmast.
The vessel which was recently named will build the wind farm “Nordsee Ost” around 30 kilometres north of the island of Heligoland from its base port Bremerhaven.
The specialised vessel, which is more than 100 metres long and 40 metres wide, is perfectly designed for the construction of offshore wind turbines and is one of the most powerful of its kind. A satellite-controlled navigation system can position the vessel precisely at centimetre accuracy for the construction works at sea. It has extendible steel beams that fix it securely to the seabed, and a crane with 1,000 tons of lifting capacity. On the building site, the vessel thus turns into a jack-up rig, from which foundations and wind turbines can be installed. The installation vessel will transport two foundation structures every two weeks and later to transport and install all 48 wind turbines of the 6 megawatt class.
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Offshore WIND staff, June 28, 2012; Image: rwe