South Boats IOW Launches 26m Crew Transfer Vessel

South Boats IOW, the UK’s foremost manufacturer of state of the art Wind Farm Service Vessels (WFSV), has launched its first of class South Cat 26m named ‘Seacat Intrepid’ for Seacat Services Ltd.

The all new South Cat 26m is the first new design to benefit from the extensive testing programme carried out to understand the benefits and limitations to various hull forms and how they perform differently specifically as offshore wind farm crew transfer vessels. This demands from this industry are unique, vessels need to perform well in high sea states providing high levels of technician comfort as well as crew comfort whilst loitering coupled to flexible cargo payloads, fuel efficiency and of course provide higher sea state technician transfers.

Many of the hull forms that demonstrated peaks of performance in one area tended to have dramatic limitations in another. The all new South Cat 26m is the first new design to address this and promises to deliver a new benchmark for CTV performance.

‘Seacat Intrepid’ measures 26.8m LOA remaining under the 24m load line requirements for small commercial vessels, has a beam of 9.2m and an operational displacement of circa. 80 tonnes. The most noticeable feature of the 26m is the height of the bow and definition of the wet deck along with the depth of the hulls coupled to reduced height of the technician saloon. Model testing results are showing dramatic improvements to ride comfort in higher sea states, significantly better WTG access performance and lower fuel burn rates, all of which have been verified on initial sea trials.

“Commitment to custom technical innovation and the highest possible build-quality is what, we believe, will continue to differentiate British boat builders from competitors across Europe and further afield in the developing Asian market,” said Ben Colman, South Boats IOW. “It’s no secret that WFSV operators are looking for reliable, high quality vessels that are tailor-made to cope with the increasingly demanding requirements of working on offshore projects worldwide – that’s why the ongoing, retained client relationship with Seacat is so significant.” 

‘Seacat Intrepid’ is the first of two sister vessels for Seacat Services with ‘Seacat Courageous’ set to be delivered early in 2015. The third, 26m is in build for as yet an undisclosed operator.