Dajin Heavy Industry has shipped the first Hornsea 3 monopiles to the UK onboard its new ultra-large, heavy-cargo deck carrier, King One.
The Chinese foundation manufacturer recently announced that it named the new vessel and sent off King One on its maiden voyage, not revealing the project the deck carrier was deployed on.
The deck carrier is 240 metres long, 51 metres wide, has a deadweight of 40,000 tonnes, and a deck area of 12,000 square metres. According to Dajin, the vessel is purpose-built for the offshore wind and offshore oil & gas sectors, and is capable of transporting monopiles, jackets, and floating foundations for 15 MW–25 MW offshore wind turbines, as well as large offshore modules.
On 2 March, the company said via social media the vessel was shipping monopiles for Ørsted’s 2.9 GW Hornsea 3 offshore wind farm.
Haizea Wind Group recently delivered the first monopiles for the project from its factory in Bilbao, Spain under a contract the company signed with Ørsted in 2022, which covers part of the XXL monopiles that the offshore wind farm will comprise.
The remainder of the foundations was contracted from SeAH Wind, which commenced production for Hornsea 3 at its new factory in the UK in July 2025.
However, SeAH and Ørsted recently decided to discontinue the contract for the supply of monopiles due to the new factory reportedly not being ready to meet the project’s volume and timeline. The portion of the monopiles that was to be produced by SeAH will reportedly be delivered by Dajin, EEW and Steelwind Nordenham.
Hornsea 3 will comprise 197 XXL monopiles, which are being stored at Steel River Quay on the Teesworks site before they are loaded onto offshore wind installation vessels later this year.
The 2.9 GW offshore wind farm will feature Siemens Gamesa’s 14 MW turbines, installed approximately 160 kilometres off the Yorkshire coast, is expected to be operational by the end of 2027.