Offshore activity is now under way some 12km north east of Margate, where Thanet Offshore Wind Ltd (TOW), a subsidiary of Warwick Energy Ltd, have plans for up to 83 turbines. The company became the first to receive full consent for a UK Round 2 project in
December 2006, with up to 300MW of electricity planned to flow from the windfarm when power generation starts in 2009.

Back at the London Array site, core sampling and cone penetration test work started in October and continued until the end of the year. The jack-up rig Excalibur, owned by Helston based Seacore Ltd, was mobilised for this work.

Capable of working in depths up to 40m and the largest of the company’s jack-up platforms, the Excalibur is no stranger to the London Array project. In September 2004 it installed a meteomast at the site, supported by tug Boxer of Antwerp based URS Belgie NV and the
Gray Test of Felixstowe based Felixarc Marine. The tower comprised a monopile foundation, mast support platform and 70m lattice mast. Supporting the Excalibur were tugs from Terneuzen based Multraship Towage & Salvage. Initially the Multratug 7 provided support and was later replaced by the Barracuda. Ramsgate is the main port used by these support vessels.

A flurry of similar activity commenced at the smaller Thanet Wind Farm site late last year. Some eight weeks of geotechnical site investigation work got under way with Leidschendam based Fugro Seacore Ltd. (Seacore Ltd was acquired by Fugro in May 2004) utilising the research survey vessel Fugro Commander, formerly the Multraship Commander, for seabed sampling work at 101 location on the proposed site.

In November the multicat Gray Mammoth, another vessel from the Felixarc Marine fleet, commenced seabed sampling at another 50 locations. Later that month, a scheduled further 12 weeks of work commenced with Great Yarmouth based Gardline Group undertaking a programme of borehole drilling. For this work the multipurpose barge Pontra Maris, owned by Stemat BV, supported by the tug/workboat Sidi C, owned by Neptune Marine Service, were mobilised.

Further positive indication of the commitment to the Thanet Offshore Wind Farm project came when Warwick Energy announced that a reservation agreement had been signed with the Danish A2SEA A/S for the long term use of the jack-up platform Sea Jack (previously named Jumping Jack). The wind turbine foundations are due to be installed in the autumn of this year and the actual erection of the turbines during the summer and  autumn of  2009.

By Peter Barker