Belgian dredging, environmental and marine engineering group DEME, has launched its newest DP3 multipurpose vessel ‘Living Stone’, built by the Spanish shipyard LaNaval near Bilbao, Spain.

The launching ceremony was carried out by Sarah Tommelein, spouse of Bart Tommelein, vice-minister-president of the Government of Flanders and Flemish minister for energy.

The 161 meters long ‘Living Stone’ is scheduled to join the fleet of three fall-pipe vessels of DEME’s offshore division Tideway in the second quarter of 2017.

The new vessel will be able to accommodate up to 100 people and should aimed at transport and installation projects as well as offshore power cable and umbilical installation, interconnectors for the future European super grid.

Its first project will be at the Merkur offshore wind farm in Germany, 45 km north of Borkum in the North Sea, for the installation of inter array cables. The ‘Living Stone’ will also be deployed for the cable installation at the offshore wind farm Hornsea Project One in the UK.

The vessel is equipped with two turntables below deck, each having a 5,000 tons cable capacity. Together the turntables can carry and transport more than 200 km of cable that can be installed in a single trip. In addition, the ‘Living Stone’ can be equipped with a third carrousel above deck with an additional load capacity of 2,000 tons and a 600 tons subsea crane. A free deck space of some 3500 m² can accommodate the modular cable/umbilical handling systems, remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), the subsea trenching tool CBT 1100 and the fall-pipe system.

Subsea World News Staff