Isle of Wight-based Seacat Services has held an official naming ceremony for the 23-metre wind farm support vessel – Seacat Liberty.
Following the naming ceremony, Seacat Liberty and the 24-metre Seacat Vigilant are heading to Harwich to start a two-year charter with Siemens Gamesa on the Galloper offshore wind project. There, they will join Seacat Ranger which began her charter for the project team at Galloper at the start of August.
The vessels are expected to start servicing the charter from the start of September and support early operations & maintenance (O&M) activities at the 336MW wind farm off Suffolk.
For the duration of the 24-month charter, Seacat Services will provide specialist logistical support to the Siemens Gamesa technical teams based out of Harwich, transporting technicians and equipment as they tackle both scheduled maintenance and technical requirements.
Siemens Gamesa has supplied and will maintain the 56 turbines at the wind farm for a period of 15 years.
Development and construction of the GBP 1.5 billion Galloper offshore wind farm is led by innogy SE on behalf of the project partners, UK Green Investment Bank (GIB), Siemens Financial Services and Macquarie Capital. The wind farm is expected to be commissioned in 2018.