MTS Backs Damen During ‘Maersk Connector’ Sea Trials

Following the delivery of Maersk Connector, Marine and Towage Services Group Ltd. (MTS) reported that it had supported Damen during sea trials of its latest offshore cabling vessel.

During comprehensive sea trials of the vessel in early 2016, the multi-purpose tug MTS Vigilant undertook anchor handling work to test the capabilities of the new vessel’s mooring systems ahead of her handover to the owner Maersk Supply Service and charterer DeepOcean.

“Given the highly demanding nature of offshore energy construction, the versatility and manoeuvrability of large modern subsea support vessels such as the Maersk Connector is critical to the success of a project,” said Jon Parslow, Managing Director, MTS.

“While sophisticated dynamic positioning systems are increasingly being installed on larger ships, in shallower waters there’s no substitute for more traditional anchor and mooring mechanisms – and the support of smaller tugs and anchor handling vessels is a crucial part of the process.”

“Putting a large new-build vessel through its paces requires the involvement of a number of trusted partners with project-specific expertise,” said Tjarco Ekkelkamp, Senior Project Manager, Damen.

“MTS’ ability not only to provide the right tool for the job in the right area of the world at the right time, but also to deliver the operational expertise that we were looking for ultimately helped us to complete the sea trials of Maersk Connectoron time and to budget.”

Maersk Connector already has a number of work commitments, including array cable installation on Bligh Bank II (Nobelwind) offshore wind farm, export cable installation on Walney Extension wind farm and bundled HVDC cable installation on the NEMO interconnector project between Belgium and the UK.