Pacific Osprey Gearing Up for Giant Wind Turbines

Swire Blue Ocean (SBO) has contracted Blue Water Shipping to transport Pacific Osprey’s new crane boom from NOV’s manufacturing yard in China to Denmark.

The boom was loaded onto SAL’s M/V Wiebke on 21 January and left the yard the day after. The vessel is expected to reach Denmark around 1 March. SBO expects Pacific Osprey to be back in service by 1 May 2020.

“This is an important milestone for Swire Blue Ocean. The transportation of the crane boom to Denmark rewards months of hard work spent developing a new crane boom design with capacity for future wind turbines. We have all been looking forward to this moment and are very excited about what is coming soon,” said Kim Tribler, Head of Marine Operations, SBO.

Pacific Osprey is a 2012 built, self-elevating wind farm installation vessel, originally fitted with a 1,200 MT main crane @ 31 m radius – 97 m hook height above deck – targeted for both foundation and wind turbine installations.

The vessel’s new crane boom will have a 1,200 MT main crane @ 31 m radius – 132 m hook height above deck; 700 MT @ 50 m radius – 125 m hook height above deck; and 115 m boom length – approx. 30 m gain in main hook height.

With its upgraded crane boom, Pacific Osprey will be capable of handling four SG 10.0-193 DD wind turbines per loadout, five MHI Vestas V164-10.0 MW or V174-9.5 MW units, and three GE Haliade-X 12MW turbines per loadout.

Earlier this month, SBO and Vattenfall signed the final contract under which Pacific Osprey will transport and install up to 140 of Siemens Gamesa’s SG 11.0-193 DD wind turbines on the Hollandse Kust Zuid 1-4 wind farms in the Netherlands.