First GPA 670 Class Platform Support Vessel Designed by Guido Perla & Associates Delivered

Published Sep 15, 2005 12:01 AM by The Maritime Executive

Seattle, Washington- Guido Perla, Chairman of Guido Perla and Associates (GPA) announced the delivery of the M/V BOURBON HELIOS, the first of ten GPA 670 Platform Support Vessels (PSV) design by the company for Bourdon Offshore of Marseille, France, a division of Groupe Bourbon.

The M/V BOURBON HELIOS was delivered July, 2005, and immediately deployed to Angola under contract to BP Petroleum. The ten 240-foot GPA 670 diesel-electric PSVs are being constructed at Zhejiang Shipbuilding in Ningbo, China.

"The forerunner to the GPA 670 design is the Rigdon Marine GPA 640 diesel-electric, which was built in the United States by Bender Shipyards in Mobile, Alabama. The tenth Rigdon PSV was delivered in August, and the vessels are now working in the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea, and West Africa," said Guido Perla. "The GPA series has established our company as the leading designer of platform support vessels in the world, and of this we are very proud."

The GPA 670 vessels are equipped with two stern-mounted Kawazaki KST-200 360 degree azimuthing Z-drive, fix pitch, 1,200 rpm powered y full range variable speed motors. A further enhancement to the diesel-electric drives is the technologically advanced dynamic positioning system and the vessel management system that provides total redundancy required for the DP-2 certification. Consequently, if a vessel system fails, it can be bypassed without the loss of control during cargo operations or while maintaining position at an offshore facility.

The GPA 670 vessel has the capability to carry 9,005 cubic feet of bulk material and 6,868 barrels of liquid mud in self cleaning oval tanks. The vessels' two pumps deliver mud to a height of 197 feet above water. The two 80-PSI air compressors can also deliver 50 metric tons of dry cement or barite per hour to the same height.

Guido Perla and Associates, Inc. was founded in 1979, and is recognized as a leading Naval Architect worldwide. In 2004, GPA opened a satellite office in Shanghai to support its construction activities and customers in China and Asia.

For more information about Guido Perla and Associates, you may visit their website at http://www.gpai.com.