Waypoint North Takes Off

Waypoint North is a newly established consultancy company specializing in the offshore aviation segment within the Offshore Wind and Oil & Gas industry.

“The demand for offshore aviation expertise is expected to increase as offshore wind projects are moving further offshore into harsher marine environments,” says Managing Director Johan Hansen. “We are seeing a large interest in the offshore wind industry for the use of helicopters for the commissioning and service phase of projects, often in combination with vessels”.

“It is a well-known fact that the cost of weather downtime due to the harsh offshore conditions is a significant headache for turbine manufactures and developers, reaching up to 50 percent on some of the more remote projects during the winter periods. By utilizing a combination of helicopters and vessels, manufactures and developers have the potential to reduce their risk and cost related to weather downtime because of the operational effectiveness of the helicopter,” says Commercial Director Eirik Sunde.

Some projects in Denmark, Germany and the UK have briefly started to utilize helicopter solutions for the commissioning and service phase and it is expected that the interest in these solutions will increase. Waypoint North employs people with extensive experience from building helicopter solutions, from business case development to implementation, on more than 10 of the largest offshore wind farms installed or planned for installation. Waypoint North is ready to support its clients in the planning and implementation phase, as well as with aviation procedures, audits and interface management across vessel owners, developers, turbine manufactures and helicopter operators.

Waypoint North currently employs Johan H. Hansen and Eirik Sunde, which previously worked for the turbine manufacturer Siemens Wind Power, where they were responsible for developing aviation concepts and solutions for offshore wind farms.