Danish marine contractor, Peter Madsen Rederi, has completed the removal of boulders at the Arkona offshore wind farm in the German Baltic.

Working directly for the wind farm developer Arkona-Windpark-Entwicklungs GmbH (AWE), owned by E.ON and Statoil, Peter Madsen Rederi (PMR) was awarded the contract last year.

The task was to remove boulders from the turbine positions and some of the cable routes prior to installation of the wind turbine foundations, which is due to start later this year.

Apart from the actual boulder removal, PMR provided high resolution multi beam surveys before and after the clearance as well as Blueview sonar scanning.

PMR used its own vessel M/V Aase Madsen for the project, which was handled out of the ports of Sassnitz in Germany and Rønne on the island of Bornholm.

The boulders at Arkona were all removed underwater without visual identification using PMR’s positioning and survey equipment in combination with the vessel’s crane and boulder grab.