Conversion Turns OSV into Specialist Wind Vessel

Poland’s Remontowa Shiprepair Yard has converted an OSV into an offshore wind farm work vessel.

The AHTS Normand Draupne was working in the Norwegian North Sea for Solstad Offshore prior to arriving at Remontowa for conversion. Now the ship is operated by Belgian owners G-tec and being readied for the offshore renewables sector.

Normand Draupne arrived at Remontowa in March. The Ulstein UT 718 design AHTS was built in 1985 in Ulstein Hatlo yard, Ulsteinvik. Not young, but well maintained, G-tec saw the vessel as being well worth the investment to upgrade. An extensive range of works was ordered including the installation of new deck equipment.

G-tec specializes in providing geotechnical engineering services and marine geophysical surveys and marine environmental surveys, and the ship has become a drill ship - not a typical oil and gas exploration drill ship, but a geological survey, coring and sampling one. Among the tasks set for the ship, now named Omalius, will be surveying and preparing the seabed for installations of offshore wind farms.

After the conversion, the multi-purpose drilling vessel is capable of performing:

• offshore geotechnical site investigation works
• offshore drilling works
• ROV inspection works
• unexploded ordnance clearance works
• offshore support
• anchor handling and towage
• grouting supply

The vessel has been readied for the installation of G-tec’s drill rig GT 30, designed to work safely in challenging environmental offshore conditions in high tidal waters (up to 13m tide). The rig is built on a mezzanine deck, and a dedicated launching mechanism offers a quick, smooth and safe switch between drilling mode and seabed cone penetration test mode through the large moonpool that was installed at Remontowa.

In Gdansk, the G-tec's drilling vessel also received a new sanitary and sewage water system, electrical system and had its main engine repaired (including overhaul of shaft lines, propellers, fore and aft thrusters, maintenance of tanks and chain lockers) Hull maintenance was performed and some steelwork, such as repairing indents on bulwark, replacement of over 100 sacrificial anodes and repairs to the deck crane.