Solis Marine’s engineering services division, which provides innovative design and engineering solutions for clean shipping, marine renewables, and offshore projects, worked collaboratively with Morek, Tope, Celtic Sea Power and First Marine Solutions in developing a concept design for the vessel.
With the design concept presented to leading industry figures at an event in London, the FFIV will be an installation vessel for the floating offshore wind market, suited for gigawatt-scale deployments. The design incorporates low-carbon fuels, providing significant advantages in fuel efficiency and time savings compared to current vessels in operation. These improvements translate into real-world cost savings, making the concept highly attractive to stakeholders in the offshore wind industry.
The FFIV concept focuses on a section of the floating wind installation process that is yet to be optimised. The three main types of anchors being considered for floating wind turbines are drag embedment anchors, which require installation by high bollard pull anchor handling vessels, suction piles and driven piles, both of which require large subsea cranes to install them into the seabed. The FFIV fills the next phase by installing the mooring lines onto the installed anchors. The mooring lines can then be connected to the floater that has been towed out by anchor handling vessels.
The FFIV was designed to maximise mooring line capacity whilst minimising running costs. The selection of azimuth thrusters and reduced resistance to provide improved station-keeping and dynamic positioning efficiency is partnered with the alternative fuel choice of methanol. To maximise mooring line capacity the FFIV has a large cable tank for storing synthetic mooring ropes and large chain lockers to hold the kilometres of chain expected for the floating wind industry.
This project is part of the Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition Round 4 (CMDC4), funded by the UK Department for Transport (DfT) and delivered by Innovate UK. CMDC4 is part of the Department’s UK Shipping Office for Reducing Emissions (UK SHORE) programme, a £206m initiative focused on developing the technology necessary to decarbonise the UK domestic maritime sector.
Solis Marine along with its partners intend to continue the development of the FFIV design towards a preliminary design stage.