Newbuild Walk-to-Work Vessel VOS Stone Finds Work at German Offshore Wind Farm

Vroon’s new walk-to-work vessel VOS Stone. Photo: Vroon

Dutch shipping company Vroon has announced that E.ON AG has contracted its newbuild VOS Stone for logistics support and offshore accommodation at the Arkona Offshore Windfarm in Germany.

VOS Stone was delivered to Vroon by Fujian Southeast Shipbuilding in China in July 2017. The vessel will undergo final outfitting works in the Netherlands and be ready to commence operations in the North Sea from November 2017.

The state-of-the-art vessel is a subsea-support walk-to-work vessel. Its sister vessel VOS Start is currently employed at the Walney Extension Offshore Wind Farm in the Irish Sea. Both vessels have been purpose-built to support operations in the renewable energy industry and walk-to-work projects in the oil and gas industry.

Like with the VOS Start, VOS Stone will be fitted with motion-compensated offshore gangway and a 50T active-heave-compensated crane. The vessel can provide accommodation for up to 60 personnel, not including crew.

“Special attention at the designing stage was paid to the client experience, resulting in comfortable cabins, recreation facilities and office spaces. Featuring a covered warehouse on the main-deck level, the vessel has the versatility to perform cargo handling and passenger transfers to and from offshore assets, such as wind turbines, offshore platforms or CTVs (crew-transfer vessels), as well as engage in subsea-support operations,” according to Vroon.

The Arkona Offshore Windfarm is located 35 kilometers northeast of the island of Rügen, Germany. It will have a capacity of 385 megawatts (MW) generated by 60 Siemens 6MW turbines and provide electricity for up to 400,000 households in Germany from 2019.

VOS Stone will commence her charter for E.On in mid-2018.

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