Demountable Workboat Free to Roam Ireland

Seawind Barclay Curle Ltd is the small ship and vessel maintenance facility within the Seawind International Group of companies, which is a multi-disciplined engineering group with interests in marine civil and subsea engineering, commercial vessel build and maintenance and wind energy developments. Based at Appledore, North Devon UK, the company operates from a quayside facility equipped with a slipway for vessels up to 400 tons deadweight, and a large modern covered workshop with twin 15 ton overhead cranes.

The yard specialises in newbuild construction for commercial craft in the 15 to 25m LOA range, including coastal trawlers and multipurpose workboats. Barclay Curle has an on going repair and maintenance contract with the RNLI for all classes of lifeboats.

Waterways Ireland issued an invitation to tender, through the European Journal in Autumn 2006. Seawind Barclay Curle Ltd was awarded the design and build contract in December 2006. The design was approved by the client’s retained naval architect, Bryan Millar of Maxtons, and construction commenced in February 2007.

The vessel was constrained in the overall beam by the necessity to pass through the Portora lock on the Erne navigation, which will be the vessel’s usual workplace. Inish Davar was designed to be demountable into three pieces, comprising two hulls and a wheelhouse unit, which allows it to be road transportable to other areas of operation within the Waterways Ireland domain. The hulls are joined using Ravenstein pontoon connectors to allow easy mating with solid, vibration free operation.

The vessel will mainly be used to undertake marine civil engineering tasks on the waterways. Seawind have thus equipped it with an air driven piling hammer to drive both tubular and sheet steel piling. Other deck equipment includes a three ton hydraulic deck winch and an Effer 10000 3S marine deck crane equipped with a 1.5 ton winch. There is also a five ton quick release tow hook.

Below decks is a 125 cfm Ingensol Rand compressor to power the piling hammer and air driven construction tools. The vessel’s hydraulic systems are powered from a hydraulic motor mounted on the front end of the port engine.

The general dimensions of the craft are as per the enclosed preliminary profile drawing.

Measuring 15m LOA, with a beam of 5m and a maximum draft of 1.8m, the 82 ton vessel is powered by twin Perkins Sabre M130C diesel engines which are expected to achieve a bollard pull of three tons. Inish Davar is also equipped with a 6KVA Westerbeke generator giving both 110 + 240 volts. Both the main engines and the generator are cooled with Tlima box coolers.

The demountable wheelhouse has a galley and messing accommodation for a crew of six. and a toilet compartment opening onto the port deck aft.

Following its launch at Seawind’s Appledore facility on the 3 December the vessel undertook successful initial sea trials before being transported to Waterways Irelands’ Enniskillen head quarters on 10 December for erection and launch. The vessel was transported on three low loader lorries and required a 300 ton crane to lift it into the Erne Navigation.

Other current projects at Seawind Barclay Curle include:

The design and construction of a demountable mult-ipurpose twin soren workboat for Waterways Ireland.

The complete rework and conversion of the prototype RNLI Tamar Class lifeboat into a coastal patrol vessel for the Kent Police.

The structural and mechanical maintenance of ‘MV Oldenburg’, the Lundy Island ferry.

The remediation and completion of ‘Sark Viking’, a new ferry for the Sark Shipping Company in Guernsey.

The initial conversion of the ex-trawler ‘Linquinda’ into a sailing vessel for a private client.

The design and construction of an aluminium dive support vessel for North Sea operations for K D Marine.