Vessel ordered to maintain navaids
Marine services provider Briggs Marine will enhance its maintenance support vessel provision following an order for a 40m addition to its fleet from Spain’s Freire Shipyard.
Briggs Marine offers a wide range of vessels covering most sectors of the marine support industry, including the UK Ministry of Defence. The new vessel will be built for the UK-based company’s charter fleet as part of a continued investment programme to renew and upgrade to maintain “a high standard of vessel services” for its clients.
Briggs says it will “enhance and expand” its offering across a range of industries, optimally configured to support ongoing contracts with UK government, offshore wind farms and commercial ports, primarily undertaking inspection, servicing and replacement of aids to navigation and heavy moorings in the UK and overseas.
A diesel-electric arrangement has been specified offering best fuel efficiency possible in a wide range of applications along with compliance with the latest and proposed future emission standards.
Owners of such vessels will of course expect a long life from their investment, and Briggs’ new family member will be future-proofed, able to embrace emerging technologies including transitional fuels and drop-in battery capacity, to allow zero carbon operations in some circumstances. It will also have DP2 capabilities.
Multi-purpose capabilities
The new vessel will have multi-purpose capabilities and while its primary task will be with aids to navigation, it will incorporate maximum flexibility supporting other tasks including ROV deployment, survey duties, diving, subsea investigation, seabed preparation tasks and other marine project activities.
Other design features include a moon pool, detachable A-frame, four-point mooring system and a survey project office. A common feature on vessels involved in the offshore wind industry, and one to be included here, is a demountable crew transfer vessel boarding ladder.
Crew welfare is another area of importance for modern vessels and the accommodation is described as “well-appointed”, with noise-reduction features enabling 24/7 operations at high levels of endurance.
Vigo, Spain-based Freire Shipyard has been building ships since 1895 and technical collaboration between builder and client has resulted in a hull shape intended to provide excellent sea-keeping properties and weather resilience.
Comfortable continuous operations will be possible with a permanent crew of six along with cabins for an additional 10 project personnel.
