International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) has gained a seat at the UK HSE GB ‘Offshore Wind Industry Leaders Workshop’ in Bootle in November thanks to its Offshore Renewable Workgroup.
“There is no doubt that the Offshore Renewables Workgroup, under the dynamic chairmanship of Alan MacLeay of Subsea 7/Seaway Heavy Lifting, is extremely proactive and producing some highly relevant documents,” said Jane Bugler, IMCA’s Technical Director and Acting Chief Executive. “It is vital that safety in the offshore renewables industry is regarded as of paramount importance, and – as has been the case in the offshore oil and gas industry – we will be doing all in our power, and this includes relevance guidance documents and competence frameworks, to encourage those involved to strive for the ‘holy grail’ of zero incidents.”
“Naturally, competence and training figures high on the list and the new ‘Guidance on competence assurance and assessment: Marine roles for small workboats’ (IMCA C 017), together with the ‘Workboat crew logbook’ was published recently.”
Bugler pointed out that work in the pipeline includes a technical industry study on standardised boat landings, which will be published later this year.
Other work being undertaken with the offshore renewables industry in mind includes the revision of IMCA M 202 ‘Guidance on the transfer of personnel to and from offshore vessels, and in particular on the vessel-to-vessel supplement. And two other important guidance documents ‘Diving Operations on Wind Farms’; and ‘ROV (remotely operated systems) Operations on a Wind Farm Installation’ are at an early stage of development.
Both documents outline the vision and objectives of such documentation, the background, the high level ‘deliverable’ that is needed to meet the identified objectives; and the stakeholders to be involved. In the case of the diving guidance these are G9, IMCA Renewable Energy Workgroup and HSE.