A new offshore wind installation vessel ‘Boreas’ built by CIMC Raffles for the Netherlands company Van Oord Ship Management has recently been launched at the Yantai shipyard in China.
The vessel, with a launch weight of 37,370t, said to be equivalent to a light aircraft carrier, is the largest launched at CIMC Raffles and will be the largest vessel of its type in service.
The vessel was launched from a slipway onto a barge, and following the ballast water tank of the barge being flooded, the vessel was floated. Subsequently, the vessel was successfully moored at the yard’s No1 quay ready for leg assembly, main crane installation, and overall commissioning.
The vessel measures 176m in length, and is designed for operation in waters up to 80m deep, with accommodation for 135 persons onboard. The vessel’s maximum net load lifting capacity is more than 20,000t and the deck area is over 7,000m2. It has a crane with a 155m-high boom, able to lift over 3,000t. It will therefore be able to install 20MW offshore wind turbines at sea. The vessel has been classified by DNV.
The Boreas is the first vessel of its kind capable of using methanol fuel. It isa equipped with about 3,000m3 of methanol storage and five methanol dual-fuel main engines, which reduces the ship’s CO2 footprint by more than 78%. In addition, the vessel will be equipped with a SCR unit to reduce the NOx emissions to a minimum.
Image: ‘Boreas’ launch (source: CIMC Raffles)
