Diving and subsea engineering specialist Red7Marine Offshore has concluded a successful six-month diving campaign at London Array, the world’s largest operating offshore wind farm.
Winter weather prevented completion of the work at one of the 175 turbines in the Thames Estuary; the small amount of remaining work will be completed with other work planned for 2015.
The Red7 Reel led the work with 24-hour diving support by the dynamic positioning 2 (DP2) vessels Relume and VOS Shine, working with a number of rigid hulled inflatable boats (RHIBs) and small craft for shallow water work, including Red7Marine Offshore owned purpose-built daughter craft COM III, resulting in more than 1300 dives during subsea work as well as many surface activities.
The construction orientated workscope included installation and inspection activities within the wind farm and its export cable corridor.
Red7Marine worked closely with both London Array and other on-site contractors, for smooth programming and minimal operational reduction for the turbines.
Graham Powell, R7M Operations Manager, said: “The different water depths throughout the project – ranging from more than 30m to areas that dry out at low tide – together with very limited tidal working windows are some of the challenges that demanded creative solutions by the LAL Project Team and Red7Marine Offshore.
“The challenges made planning the work and slack water working time particularly technical, but the teams’ flexibility to tackle the challenges contributed to its successful completion.”
Martin Myhill Sisley, chief executive of Red7Marine Offshore , said: “The successful completion of this project on the London Array wind farm is another mark of the reliability and operational capacity of Red7Marine, further showing why they lead the way in North Sea diving operations, both in renewables projects and oil & gas.”
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Press release; Image: Red7Marine