Sea Jack takes king of the wind farms

When completed, Greater Gabbard will be the world’s largest offshore wind farm and the first UK project to go into international waters. Some 140 wind turbines, each of 3.6MW capacity, will be located around two sand banks known as Inner Gabbard and The Galloper in the North Sea off the Suffolk Coast.

A2SEA, whose approach to installing offshore wind farms is based on the concept of leg supported crane vessels, will deploy the ‘Sea Jack’ to commence operations in the spring of 2010. Formerly the ‘Jumping Jack’, A2SEA’s acquisition of the vessel in 2007 enables the company to install complete projects, including foundations and future turbines of the 5+MW class.

In preparation for these upcoming works, the barge performed a series of jacking trials at the site to verify seabed conditions. A2SEA will operate from the new Great Yarmouth East Port, which is currently under construction.

Sea Jack is capable of loading three complete 3.6MW turbines at a time, which is important for operational efficiency given the distance from the logistics harbour to the wind farm site. The A2SEA project management team will be based in the Great Yarmouth area and it is expected that the team currently working on the Thanet project will continue onto the Greater Gabbard operation.

A2SEA Limited is currently strengthening its UK operations through the recruitment of both office and on-site project related positions.

A2SEA CEO Jens Frederik Hansen said ‘We are extremely pleased to have reached agreement with Fluor for A2SEA to work on the Greater Gabbard project. The site presents some interesting challenges for vessel operations, which will provide our experienced project team with the opportunity to really demonstrate the know how that has been built up in A2SEA on a wide range of projects’.