Annual trials of dynamic positioning (DP) systems can be conducted remotely using class-approved digital surveys to reduce costs for vessel owners.

Offshore support vessel (OSV) operators can undertake mandatory DP trials without paying for a surveyor to attend using Kongsberg Maritime’s DP Digital Survey (DPDS) application after it was approved by a leading classification society. This is increasingly important during this year’s global coronavirus pandemic when travel to and from vessels is restricted.

Bureau Veritas has issued an approval in principle (AiP) for Kongsberg’s DPDS following a successful pilot using Bourbon Offshore vessels in the last two years.

DPDS digitises all the data derived from DP annual tests, carried out in accordance with IMO MSC Circ 1580 and International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) M 190 guidelines.

These are conducted by OSV crew to verify the performance and redundancy of the vessel-specific DP system encompassing the complete installation for DP a vessel, comprising, but not limited to, the following sub-systems: power system, thruster system and DP control system.

DPDS runs on a validated, industrial data recording and management platform that provides access to data acquired directly from the DP system. Data is transferred to class surveyors via Kongberg’s secure cloud infrastructure upon completion of the trials.

The surveyor can then play back the DP annual trial programme onshore, based on the high-quality DP data accumulated.

Each test is unique and can be played back individually. Surveys can be carried out at any time from any location once the data is uploaded to Kongsberg’s cloud.

Vessel owners can use the digital survey tool to collate and present concrete evidence that the necessary test procedures have been carried out and completed.

This should assure energy companies and OSV charterers that DP systems are compliant with industry and regulatory guidance and their own stringent safety requirements.

“The benefits of the DPDS application to vessel owners are numerous,” said Kongsberg Maritime president Egil Haugsdal.

“The digital survey tool enables substantial savings to be made because far less time needs to be spent off-hire, and it obviously removes the requirement to cover travel expenses for surveyors,” he said. “It can also improve crew competence, simplifying DP annual trials and making the approval process far more efficient and straightforward,” Mr Haugsdal added.

DPDS is an add-on to Kongsberg’s existing K-IMS application suite. Its maintenance management system interfaces and tamper-proof image upload functionality enable secure digital evidence collection, including images and video recordings.

Bureau Veritas has developed an additional class notation, DDPS (Digital Dynamic Positioning Survey) as an addition to its existing DYNAPOS notation.

Bureau Veritas vice president and marine operations director Laurent Leblanc said the AiP was “not issued lightly” and followed two years of evaluation.

“The DPDS application has met our stringent criteria to demonstrate compliance in principle with our DDPS class notation,” he said.

“The quality, detail and security of the transferred data has to meet our exacting standards, and we are satisfied to confirm that Kongsberg’s DPDS application fulfils its function admirably.”

There has been considerable industry discussion since remote digital DP surveys were introduced.

The latest round of these discussions was held during Riviera Maritime Media’s ’Remote DP trials and FMEAs: What the guidelines say. What the guidelines mean’ webinar earlier this month.

This was sponsored by DP & Marine Assurance Norway and Keelson Marine Assurance and was part of Riviera’s Offshore Vessels Webinar Week.

During that webinar, a panel of experts tackled questions covering testing DP systems on vessels and offshore drilling rigs and analysing failure mode effect analysis (FMEA).

Panellists weighed in on the extent to which industry guidelines can be relied upon to provide vessel owners and operators operational and safety assurance.

And, in discussing the different types of DP trials, they offered expert review on whether existing guidelines help the industry analyse failure modes and fault tolerance on DP vessels.

Source:https://www.rivieramm.com/news-content-hub/class-approves-remote-and-digital-dp-annual-trials-60718

SMST in the Netherlands is to provide an access and cargo tower with motion-compensated gangway for Ta San Shang Marine’s service operation vessel (SOV).

The Dutch company is also to supply the vessel with a 3D motion-compensated crane.

The SOV will be the first to operate in Taiwanese waters. The vessel owner is a joint venture between Japanese ship owner MOL and Ta Tong Marine.

Vard Vung Tau shipyard in Vietnam, which is building the vessel, awarded SMST a contract to deliver the access and cargo tower, motion-compensated gangway and 3D motion-compensated crane for the newbuild.

The SOV will work for Ørsted on the Greater Changhua offshore windfarm in the Taiwan Strait, starting in Q1 2022.
The equipment supplied by SMST will safely transfer the turbine maintenance personnel and cargo to offshore wind turbines.

SMST said the gangway “will be equipped with assisted landing and there will be a shared operator chair installed on the ship’s bridge to control both the crane and gangway.”

“This will increase overall efficiency of the vessel,” said SMST sales manager Menno de Jong.

SMST will deliver the equipment in Q3 2021. Scheduled for delivery in early 2022, the SOV will use the Port of Taichung as its base, where Ørsted’s future O&M facilities will be located, due to its proximity to the sites, water depth and navigational access.

Source:https://www.rivieramm.com/news-content-hub/smst-to-provide-offshore-access-solution-for-taiwanese-sov-60627

A crew transfer vessel (CTV) built for the Yunlin offshore windfarm in Taiwan has been completed by Lungteh shipyard.

The CTV, Prosperous 1, was completed on schedule, and formally named on 20 July in Yilan County.

The vessel is the first locally-built CTV for Taiwan’s Prosperous Wind Shipping and will be used to transport windfarm technicians and materials to the Yunlin offshore windfarm.

The decision to build the CTV locally was made with respect to Taiwan’s local content policy and to help strengthen the regional economy.

Construction was initiated by the operator of the Yunlin windfarm, wpd Taiwan, and independent service provider Deutsche Windtechnik.

The 640-MW Yunlin offshore wind project, the largest offshore wind transaction financed in the Asia Pacific region, reached financial close on 30 May 2019. The windfarm is being built 8 km off the Taiwanese west coast and will consist of 80 turbines, each of 8 MW. Project completion is scheduled in December 2021.

wpd AG developed the project and received a tariff award from the Taiwanese Government in April 2018.

The Yunlin project is 73% owned by wpd and 27% owned by a Sojitz Corp-led consortium. Apart from Sojitz, other members of the consortium include Chugoku Electric Power Co, Chudenko Corporation, Shikoku Electric Power Co Inc and JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy Corporation.

Source: https://www.rivieramm.com/news-content-hub/locally-built-taiwanese-crew-transfer-vessel-launched-60543